These Days
by ShaNini86
Summary: A character analysis for each member of the team Post "Lauren," episode 6.18. Please let me know what you all think!
1. Reid

**I had to write, at least, a one-shot after last night's episode. The song lyrics are from a Johnny Cash cover of a NIN song. They aren't the type of musicians I usually listen to, but both renditions are so emotional and raw that I wrote this whole thing in one sitting while listening to the Johnny Cash version. It only felt appropriate to use it for this post "Lauren" one-shot. Hopefully, I did the episode, character, and song justice. Enjoy!**

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_"I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair. Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. Beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear. You are someone else. I am still right here. What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end."-Johnny Cash, "Hurt."_

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These days, he doesn't know who he is anymore. These days, he doesn't know if he ever was anyone at all. These days, he exists, merely because not existing takes too much effort, much more effort than he knows how to muster. These are the days where he walks, talks, and sounds like he should, like he used to, but he's not there. These days, he's everywhere, but nowhere all at the same time. And he's not sure whether or not this matters anymore.

Around him, the world continues its cycles, its monotonous repetition of sunrises and sunsets, and he knows that nothing's changed because, more often than not, he's awake for both ends of the loop. Sometimes, on a rare day off, he sits in a public area sipping a strong cup of coffee, watching everyone bustle through their lives. There are mothers with strollers and worn sneakers, completing errands only to venture to appointments, play dates, parks with swings and slides. There are teenagers with skin marked by rows of studded earrings and with dyed hair that rivals Garcia's once-flamboyant styles. The more defiant ones pucker cracked lips and chipped fingernails around stubbed cigarettes that they never finish, saving the remaining bit of nicotine into dirty, holed jean pockets. The elderly continue their slow descent, assisted and propped by the arm of a nurse, family member, or a metal walker with deflated tennis balls protecting the bottoms. He watches them more intently than the brisk-walking, cell phone-addicted men in business suits. The older ones are ticking clocks, and he debates how fair it is that they still have time left when she doesn't.

Some days, when he views her desk that was unceremoniously emptied by someone when everyone had gone home for the night, he thinks that he should really feel angry. But anger, especially pointless, clouded, concealed anger, has never been his thing. He's the type of person who uses anger when it's uncontrollable, when it's needed, and when he knows there's a point. He learned a long time ago that anger stemming from nowhere, from nothing, has its roots deep down within a problem, a habit, he left behind years ago. No, he can't be angry. Maybe dejected, always depressed, but never angry. Morgan has that one covered, and it doesn't seem fair to invade his grieving process. When he thinks about it, it doesn't seem like grieving. It feels like breathing. And he's not sure when the two became one.

There are times after trying cases where the old wounds linger in their aching joints and sleep-deprived eyes, throwing shadowed ghosts onto every late-night flight and creasing all their expressions with a palpable exhaustion. They never speak anymore, not like the used to, and sometimes he wished they would. He waits for the time when Rossi will stop being so calm, so poised, and accepting. He wants the Rossi from the hospital waiting room. The one who crumbled, who broke, but the one who stayed. He tried to leave, cowardly as it feels now, but his feet had moved and worked for him before his brain understood. These days, there are a lot of things he doesn't understand and there are many more things he refuses to question.

He longs to hear Garcia's banter, her jokes, her inappropriate, but tolerated, comments through live feeds and phone calls. Instead, the voice is clipped, controlled, and, when it isn't, it's abrupt. She tells them what they need to know, what they have to hear, but she doesn't ease the pain anymore. Then, the dial tone resounds a never-ending even blankness that makes his skin prickle with memories. Morgan almost always turns away first, breaking contact with a defiant thumb pressed onto the disconnect key. It sounds as empty as his portion of the phone calls he receives from JJ. She pries, she tries to break through the walls that he has built and watched grow to dizzying heights, but he can't tell her he's okay. He can't promise to visit her, or Henry, even thought his godson is getting older. Even though he's older. Instead, he sends cryptic, scrawled messages on post cards he buys or steals from the various places he visits during cases. He hopes she'll stop calling. When her check-ins become less frequent and then few and far between, he wants to smile because he's won. But then he realizes what that means, and how much wider the rift has become. Just like that, the connection that he once thought was impenetrable breaks.

And Seaver? She has no idea what to do, but she's recoiled inside herself. She studies her books incessantly, as if they hold the answers to everything. As if knowledge and words make up for some mistake she's made, although he knows that no one is to blame for everything that happened. And, when he looks at her, blond hair cascading down so it covers her face, lips silently mouthing words he could read in fractions of a second, his insides burn. His anger seethes, ruminates, and threatens to erupt, but he quells its rising, preferring to avoid the young agent who looks to him for guidance he doesn't want or know how to give.

Hotch sometimes looks like he wants to drop the mask, the facade, the endless game of charade they've been playing for so long now. Instead, when the moment of concern clouds his eyes and when he stares at the distant far-off horizon from a tiny plane window that does not allow for the full view of the sky, the younger agent thinks that there's something more, there's something else, the unit chief isn't revealing. But he doesn't bother interfering. In another life, he may have, but there's too much time and empty space between them all now. Hotch is allowed to grieve differently than everyone else. In a little over a year, he's buried a loved one and a friend. When he thinks about it, he knows they all loved her. Much more than they'd ever show, admit, or acknowledge. And maybe that's why they can no longer look at one another.

Sometimes Morgan's whole body tenses, as if pain is shooting through each limb, rocketing off of calcified bones, misfiring neurons, and frayed tendons. But he knows pain and he knows Morgan, at least he thinks he does, at least he used to, and this involuntary shudder is different. It's the one memories create. The kind of malady that the past lives through, and the present tries to avoid. He wants to reach out to Morgan more than anyone else because Morgan, in other worlds, did that for him. He was always there, always present, and always willing to fight. The battle's over, the white flags are fluttering in the whirlwind created by secrets, and Morgan is no more than a shell. He longs to tell Morgan he understands, he feels the same way too, but the words cease to form. In the hospital waiting room, he noticed the bloodstains and how the dried liquid cracked between the rough, calloused folds etched in Morgan's skin. Sometimes, if he looks long enough at Morgan's hands, he can still see her blood, her end, and he can't help but feel jealous that Morgan was able to say goodbye.

And he knows it all comes down to that, to goodbyes, although it's not that he's even been any good at them. It's not like he hasn't had practice, though. Enough people have left his life. By now, he should be an expert, like the way he is with facts, statistics, and tangents that he now prefers to keep to himself. But all the past departures were sudden, and all he's ever been left with are empty words, illegible reasons, and the haunting feeling that there will never be enough time or enough space in his life to understand why he must stay, must endure, must watch the blurred distance, while others vanish for some illusion of higher ground.

These days, he walks aimlessly in the fog rolling through early-morning hours, scouring the dew-soaked world for signs, reasons, and the comforts he wished came from someone, anyone, and, worse, anything. Sometimes he finds dilapidated buildings with homeless men wrapped in rags and filled with hollow stares. Other times, he rests at 24-hour diners, nursing one cup of coffee long past the welcoming point. Other times, he watches the bars empty with hoards of bleary eyed people stumbling on rough pavement that is not forgiving when they fall to meet its surface. He avoids looking when he sees Rossi walking straightly out of one, even though the older man sees him too. They all have their coping mechanisms, and his cannot be in the form of any type of substance, although he's imagined the euphoric place more than once. More than he'd like to admit. Sometimes, when it's all too much, he sits in a meeting. Any meeting, really, it doesn't matter. He listens to the stories of the lost, the broken, the recovered, and the lonely, and, when it's his turn to share, he always walks away without a word. During those times, he can't tell a group of strangers that he's no longer past the time of disjointed release.

These days, he finds her grave, the empty symbol for her life, and he traces the stone indents, the familiar name, with his eyes. Sometimes he stares, sometimes he speaks, and, sometimes, he remembers. When he's lucky, he hears her voice, meets her gaze, feels her smile, and it's all alright again. For a moment, things are back to the skewed form of normal that he once resented, but now wishes would return. In these recollections, he savors the moment before the dawn blemishes pinks and grays onto the world. He sits with himself. He tells her that he'll be better. He'll try to sleep, he'll participate at meetings, and he'll smile, joke, and even spew a fact or two again. He knows she wouldn't want this, all this darkness. She'd say her life was filled with too many lies, too many disguises already, but, these days, he's not sure how to be better. Maybe he will today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe, one of these days, he'll finally return to keeping his promises.

These days, he's only sure of one thing, if there's anything to be absolutely sure of anymore, and that knowledge propels him from one moment to the next. It circles in his mind as he tries to sleep on his stripped bed, staring at the countless rotations made by the humming ceiling fan. He chokes this truth down his esophagus, like the black coffee he now somehow manages to stomach, and it almost always pulsates in tempo to the perpetual throbbing in his head. It's the certainty that allows him to find the motions to complete his job. He pulls his gun mechanically now, never missing a mark since she left. It's the way he goes with Morgan to the gym, and how the older man silently accepts his need to squash the burning blame and guilt coursing through his bloodstream. He sees this all from far away, from somewhere he can't hurt, and he doesn't know what will happen today anymore than he knows what will happen tomorrow. Sometimes, he accepts that she wasn't just one person. She was many people; she wore many masks, yet, during brief moments, he's grateful he knew the real one.

Yet, every time he turns to leave her grave, he mouths the words he never got to say, the ones he practically would destroy himself to say, and he tries to tell himself that she hears him. He naively tells himself that she's out there, somewhere, and one day they'll all be back together. One day, but not this day, he'll be able to live completely again. Until then, he inhales, exhales, focuses his gaze on the path leading away from the memory of her, and whispers his goodbye.

These days, he's not sure who he's really leaving behind.


	2. Hotch

**Hi everyone. Originally, this was supposed to be a Reid POV, post 'Lauren' one shot. Well, that didn't exactly work, so now each chapter will detail a team member's POV post 'Lauren.' Enjoy! :)**

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"_Here we come to a turning of the season  
Witness to the arc towards the sun  
A neighbor's blessed burden within reason  
Becomes a burden borne of all in one."_

_-The Decemberists, "Don't Carry it All."_

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These days, he doesn't know how to face the team, his son, and his own reflection, staring deep, hard-set cores into the bathroom mirror still blemished by shower steam. Pink cheeks and unmasked eyes replaced by drooping, wrinkled skin and steel gazes. Looks that mask his feelings, the years, and any hint of the truth. Sometimes, during these days when shock wears away and grief makes itself comfortable, he can't stand to watch, to bare witness to their pain, to know what he does, and to remember her. Because, even if he knows what really happened, he's not immune. He feels grief too, but it's just in a different form, it's a different battle, and, these days, he's not sure if he can carry it all.

These days, he doesn't want to be the leader, their leader, anymore. It's been a long time since he was truly someone's subordinate, but he squashes the memories of Gideon almost as much as he does other ghosts that linger in everything elongated shadow. On his worst days, he thinks of everyone they've lost, everyone he's lost, and he acknowledges that he may be next. One day, composure will disappear and walls will tumble because, in order to stop the stray bullets and constant never-ending wars of black, he'll cross the line. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but, one of these days, he'll learn how to lose control, although he already feels like he's spiraling, and it's emptier than the casket buried underneath the stone marker etched with her name.

Sometimes, when he's sure that the bustling bullpen hides his observations, he stands on the catwalk, perched above it all, and watches the unfolding. And it's one hell of an undoing. Morgan's the first one he notices not because he's a mess, far from it, but because he's trying to mask his pain, his grief, and he's almost succeeding. He'll never openly tell Morgan this, but the realization that Morgan is like him in so many ways hurts his heart so badly that it aches, pulling on connections he severed so long ago. The younger agent is trying to be strong, mainly for Garcia and Reid, but when Reid is busy and bent over paperwork and Garcia in her computer cave, the man's eyes wander to his partner's desk, and everything evaporates. There's a raising of eyes to meet his own, a burning look, and a quick walk to the nearest restroom or deserted office. These days, he has to stop his legs from following because, if he does, he's not sure he can withhold the truth.

There are times when he catches Dave in some far-off stare, some memory, and he leans forward between a plane aisle or during a rare moment of stillness in, yet another, strange city or precinct, and asks the whispered, yet concerned, "Are you alright?" Sometimes, he receives an admonishing look, one that says he should know better, but, more often that not, there's a slight head nod and silence. During these times, he wants to take the older man by the shoulders, wants to tell him everything, but he's surprised Dave, of all people, hasn't figured it out yet. Instead, he exhales deeply and offers to talk. When it's refused and he gets the late-night call from some random bartender, he never protests, pulling on wrinkled clothing and driving to wherever Dave has gone to wash down his sorrows. This game of pick up is his penance, his eventual path to an absolution that may never come, and he drives through darkened streets thinking he's not doing enough. He's never done enough. At these times, he hates himself more than anything.

Sometimes, he stares at JJ's number still programmed, still speed-dialed, into his cell phone and he wants to call her. He longs to scream, to tell her that he can't be witness to grief's clutches anymore, but then he thinks she's ridden with guilt too. Only she doesn't have to see it on all the bloodshot eyes decorated by purple half crescents and heightened by stubby, bitten fingernails. While unnecessary words no longer are exchanged and the deck of cards gains layers of dust next to the completely unused chest set on the plane, he longs to pick up his phone, demand a report she does not have, and blame her for everything. It's not fair, this blame, and he knows it. He knows it as much as he knows that he's tiptoeing around everyone because, a year prior, they had seen his own pain. During these times when he has to stare out plane windows to garner some strength, he reminds himself of oaths, of promises, of friends, and, when that fails to bring comfort, he remembers JJ's words in the hospital:

_"You know we did the right thing, Hotch." But it doesn't feel like the right thing. Not with Rossi crying, Seaver staring at nothing, Reid falling to pieces, and Morgan trying to hold Garcia together. As long as he'll live, he'll never forget the sight of her blood caking Morgan's hands. When he couples that sight with Reid allowing himself to be hugged, to be physically comforted, he thinks he may be sick._

_"I don't think I can do this, JJ." But the look she gives tells him he has no choice._

The rare days off give him some solace, and he walks his son to the playground underneath oak trees filling with green shoots parted by warm rays of light. Sometimes, Seaver follows, and he doesn't question how she knows where he is or where he's going. She keeps her distance a few paces behind, always too many steps behind, but she's there. She stands at the playground's periphery with her hands in pockets, withdrawing before she really had a chance to grow. He recognizes the guilt, sees how she feels intruding, and, when Jack is preoccupied with swings and sand toys, he stands next to her. The don't speak during these times, but he'll never admit that her innocence startles him, surprises him, and eases the burden he carries.

On slow days, Garcia crosses the threshold, leaving her humming computer cave to flutter to each team member. She brings Rossi homemade baked goods, staying in his office until he's sure he hears the sound of Italian opera through the too-thin walls and floating upwards from floor heating grates. It's Garcia who gets Morgan to smile and, even if it dissipates almost immediately after forming, but he sees this as a welcome sign to the land of normal. He wants to tell her to keep marching, to keep trying, but her tears are layered too. Some days she wears neutral colors that make him think of rainy skies and gray mornings. When he closes his eyes, he remembers how blinding her clothing, and personality, once was. He'd by lying even more these days if he said he didn't miss it.

In the beginning, he wasn't sure who would be worse, but it seems like Morgan and Reid are tied in some epic duel, some losing battle, over who will react in the most unsettling ways. Sometimes, Morgan's blood shot eyes and dropped, false, stoicism scares him, troubles him, but it evaporates before he can place why there's a lack of anger. Then, Reid retaliates with a harsh word thrown like a casual fling across round conference tables, ones he though would not break, and his eyebrows raise. Other times, Reid looks like a ghost, white, haunted, and lost, wandering around the bullpen, drinking out of and refilling his worn coffee mug. His skin clings to his bones, becomes translucent, and sometimes he catches himself tracing the blue veins on the milky white arms, searching for the small dot, the small prick, that he knows, this time, will cause another funeral. These days, when he finds no proof, he tries to speak gently to the young man who has lost so many before her. For his efforts, he receives empty stares that prickle goosebumps on his flesh. When Reid leaves with a nod, but no more, he sighs, running a worn hand over tired eyes. These days, he has to remind himself that he can no longer protect Reid, even though he'd destroy himself trying to.

He comes to term with his guilt at her grave site among trees that begin to fill with tentative green leaves and then brilliant flowers. Sometimes, he stares at the three words, ones JJ had chosen, and he tries to remind himself of what's right. There are times when the world, and his knowledge, feels crushing, so he finds his way to Hayley's grave to confess who he's become. Other times, he tells the empty memory how alone he feels, how incredibly scared he is for her, for the team, for the thin strand of trust he knows can be broken with two words, and he can't stop the tears. Grief overcomes him, takes hold, and he wishes he were stronger. He wishes oaths didn't mean lies, and he wonders when the world, his world, their world, will collapse.

These days, when he finds himself standing in the bask of a pink summer night sky, he finds the memories of her, the real ones, and he lets himself reminisce. She's standing in his office with a cardboard box, she's soaked with rain and sadness telling him she needs to be human, to be real, but her eyes are wide, accepting when she acknowledges that she probably does compartmentalize better than most. He closes his eyes, opens them, and turns to go, promising her protection through his own growing rift.

He always leaves with a nod, a hardened stare he knows she'll recognize, and he hope she takes strength knowing they're safe. He hopes she's strong. He wonders if she's safe. And, when he can no longer stand the uncertainty, he drops his gaze to his feet, watching as the black loafers lead away from the biggest lie he has ever supported.

These days, he understands the weight of silence.


	3. Garcia

**Thank you for all the wonderful, quality reviews. I found this POV difficult to write, so, hopefully, it works for everyone! Happy reading :)**

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_"Well, maybe the landslide will bring it down. Oh, the landslide will bring it down." -Fleetwood Mac, "Landslide."_

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These days, she tries desperately to bring light, warmth, anything really, that will fill the empty, bleeding spaces in her life. Her apartment perpetually smells of baked goods, of vanilla, of a home decorated with color and a cheeriness she now watches deflate with each passing moment. Sometimes she thinks this is not her, this heaviness, but she wears this feeling like an old, favorite, comfortable jacket that's been hiding somewhere in the depths on her closet for far too long. This pain rapidly returns, and the grief fits far more than she likes, wants, or desires. Once, a long time before the FBI gave her the ultimatum that changed her life, she struggled to stay afloat, adhering to the only code she knew. But now, in the wake of some ultimate collapse, she can no longer bury herself in binary. Emily's saved among her documents, captured on her screen saver, and hidden inside her secret files-the ones she embedded so long ago to keep everyone safe-and she thinks that it wasn't enough. It doesn't feel like enough. As the days begin and Kevin reaches for her warm body underneath tangled bed sheets, she pulls away before the tears form, before she allows herself to give into his reassuring half-whispers, escaping his gentle grasp by plodding through dark hallways that eventually lead to the old projector. One of these days, she'll have to acknowledge that the past has disappeared, people are gone, things have changed, but that doesn't stop her from trying to bring it all back.

These days, she wakes each morning with the goal of making each day count, like she's almost certain Emily would want. But the hours are long, the information bleak, and, by every end, she feels exhausted, defeated, and alone. There's an acrid, metal taste lining her throat each time the team leaves on their increasingly futile attempt to squash another bout of black. Icy fingers wrap around her heart, her memories, and she struggles to keep her panic at bay each time she observes all their hunched, drooped shoulders retreat into a whirlwind, a nightmare, that, these days, is all too real. Between phone calls void of any promise of alleviation, one that she used to be so skilled at dealing, she bites back pleas for normalcy delivered in the form of sexual innuendos and sarcastic, but loving and tolerated, comments. Their voices, their familiar inflictions, however pained and changed, are still reassuring, even if they're altered enough for her to understand how badly everything, and everyone, is spiraling. Morgan's is hiding, Reid's is empty, Hotch's is stressed, Ashley's is insecure, and Rossi's is heavy, but they're all there. This deflection, this tainted knowledge, eases her anxiety, pulls at her heart, and, by the time they finally return with bloodshot eyes and lined expressions, she manages to exhale, to breathe fully once more. During these days, worry is her constant companion because she does not know how to feel anything else.

Sometimes, she thinks that this aftermath is karma. After all the horrors they've faced and prevented, Emily's death seems like their collective end. Knowingly, she halts ruminating because, if this really is the cosmos at work, they're all next on death's hit list. Instead, when there are slow days that drag on some fucked up loop of tears and regrets, Garcia hacks into the bullpen's cameras, watching each member's silent battle, their overwhelming struggles, with grief. Everyone is falling apart, breaking down, and retreating around her, but, oddly enough, during these moments of voyeuristic, yet needed, pressing comfort, it's Seaver she sees first. Sometimes, Ashley stares too long at the empty desk and the tech wonders if the youngest team member feels guilty for her own emotions, her own pain, and her own wordless regrets. It's there too, hidden behind eyes that mask her true intentions as she bends over books and scribbled notes. When Garcia realizes it's because the young woman does not know how to manage herself and her place on a rapidly devolving team, she turns away, pointing the lens to someone, anyone, else that can help make her own depression less immense.

During times of quiet reflection, Reid looks like he used to, like Garcia remembers him being after Nathan Harris, and Gideon, and even Hayley's death, but, this time, these days, Garcia cannot reach him. She tries to tell her once-lively friend that it will get better, that he'll feel better, but, when she parts her lips and his seeping, burning, dead eyes meet hers, she cannot fathom outlining such a horrible lie. She sees the body on the cabin floor, the framed instance in time when he actually died, and Garcia does not know how to separate the past from the present, the truth from fiction, and the longing to fix things, to help others, to be the sunshine the team rarely sees as her desire to comfort others dwindles to drastically low levels. Instead, she drops the young man's gaze, watching his rounded shoulders, pocketed hands, and alarmingly thinning frame as he shuffles away. Where he's running to, Garcia's not sure, but she'd give anything to hear a rambled tangent, a sputtered statistic, even a moment of social confusion. When the tears burn at the back of her eyelids, threatening to overflow as they do so often now, Penelope cannot help but think that they've lost more than one member.

When Hotch calls, as he does more than Morgan now, he asks for specifics, for the electronic dirt she can so easily resurrect from the gallows of the internet. His voice is calm, poised, and, underneath all of it, she can feel the tormenting, all-encompassing guilt. She tells him what she knows, what she finds, but she longs to explain that things don't have to be this way. Tragedy, maybe death, always despair, should bring them together. Hotch is the pillar of strength, of support, of everything she secretly admires, but his voice is exhausted. It's one that's seen too much, lived through much more, and, when Garcia signs off first, always first now, she cannot choke back the sobs. In her empty office, she releases her frustrations, gripping the desk's solid, wooden edge. These days, she wants to deny the fact that she loves every single one of them because, if she does, the landslide, the toppling, of grief will not destroy everything in its way.

Some days, she sees what this anguish is doing to them, how it's tearing everyone in different, dark directions, and she arrives at work wearing a rainbow of color, clanking jewelry, and carrying a plate of fresh baked goods. She goes to Rossi's office first not because she wants to help him the most, but because she's never seen the man so dejected. She stays long past the welcoming point, talking about anything, about nothing, until he finally shows a weak smile, reaching for a cookie or brownie. On rare instances when the older agent managed a couple of hours of sleep, is not hung over, is less angry, maybe more depressed but not temperamental, she persuades him to listen to Italian opera. He hums along, illustrating the stories with wide gesticulations, and explains the translations, but his smile fades when they both realize that Emily would have understood the foreign words too. She always leaves before the crescendo because she knows, and cannot bear to see, how and when Rossi loses his steadfast level of acceptance, breaking into a crumbled man.

But she's powerful on the days when she wakes after a few hours of sleep that have not been interrupted by nightmares. During these brief moments before the alarm clock blares, scattering past the serene low light peeking in from the outside, she thinks that their pain is mutual. It's hers, it's theirs together, and she wakes with an agility she has not possessed in years. She takes time to carefully apply her makeup, coordinate her outfit, and, on her way to work, she thinks of ways to make Morgan smile. It seems like an impossible task, especially these days, but she tries so much, so long, that it becomes inevitable. For strained moments at his desk situated next to an stark, empty, abandoned one she can no longer look at, the man fights his attempt to stay focused, to stay strong, but he eventually breaks. In a flash of pearly whites, a set of dimpled cheeks, and a crinkle of a lighter past, the tension flees for higher ground, even if just for a moment. She's not surprised when it fades as quickly as it's formed, but she realizes she is more surprised by his smile than by the lack of anger that she does not see. Garcia suspects he releases frustrations during cases in strange cities that are dealing with their own losses; however, sometimes, on bad days that feel never-ending, when she closes her eyes, the memory of Derek's brilliant smile is all she needs.

But that relief is never there when he knocks on her door on random, unpredicted, late nights. They never speak of these silent times, these truths, but she always lets him inside, watching his dragging feet as she follows him to the sofa. Morgan always looks away, fixating his gaze onto the opposite walls as he sinks dejectedly onto the couch. She always sits wordlessly next to him, daring not even to breathe too loudly. He always takes the lead, allowing himself to talk, to sit quietly, to reminisce, to remember everything he's been pushing back and away for years, and, eventually, he stops pretending to be strong, to be in control, and he breaks open, spilling out decades worth of darkness and regrets. She always is taken back by this retreating, this shattering, but she understands it's because all she can hear are his wretched sobs, his need for comfort, and his inability to fix everything, to fix her, to fix himself. One of these days, but not anytime soon, she'll explain that being strong means being weak. Instead, she wraps her arms around his shaking frame, pretending that she doesn't recognize the old familiar emptiness echoing off muted, once-colorful, walls.

One of these days, she'll resent the time they spent in isolated darkness. For now, though, she throws her hands skyward in frustration, returning them to her keyboards when the idea rockets to the forefront. She hacks into every camera, every recorder, she can possibly find, and then the memories, the ones she thought were avalanched beneath mounds of regrets, become unearthed. Emily is reinvented, is alive with beauty and laughter and everything they once were. Years of surveillance footage of the bullpen and it's mundane, sometimes downright banal tasks, are copied onto individual discs, only to be distributed at random intervals when she sees the siren song of warning, of burn out, of breakdown, of complete destruction. Morgan receives his after heated words with Hotch and an angry march to a deserted bathroom. Sevear finds the conspicuous copy in a text book after a failed exam. Rossi discovers his tucked into the middle of a towering stack of paperwork, Emily's old files he's committed to finishing, and Hotch's is left in the middle of a clean desk after a trying case. Reid's is the hardest, but she manages to deliver the unexpected gift when she finds him walking in the pouring rain after a case that hit way too close to their now dislodged home. She hand-delivers JJ's copy when she visits her godson, avoiding the blond woman's empathetic, prying eyes with games of peek-a-boo, with soaring swings, and imaginary battles where the good guys always win and heroes never die. When she squeezes JJ's thin frame at the end of a visit, Garcia swears she hears the muttered apology. Yet, when she leaves, JJ is smiling, holding her son, and wearing a mask that feigns strength. Garcia's own copy is digitized to the extreme and, on numerous late nights, the projector loops the past with the present, splattering everything and everyone she once held close onto darkened walls. Sometimes, she even remembers to smile when the familiar images, scenes, and faces fill her living room with false shadows.

But, on the worst days, when it hurts to breathe, to exist, it's not enough to watch the past. It's never enough to remember. She finds her way to the cemetery, to a place she hates to visit, and she stands with teary eyes and windswept hair in front of the stone that, somehow, feels so wrong, so empty. She speaks quietly, as if the trees will give away her secrets, scattering them among the other stones like the dead, dry leaves that decorate the grounds. She tells Emily about the team, how they're all breaking apart, falling away, and she begs her to send them some guidance, some strength, some semblance of anything. She tells the hollowness that she cannot be the glue, the mothering person she's known to be, because it hurts too much. Penelope whispers pleading apologies. If only, she found Emily sooner. If only, Emily had explained everything. If only, she could have realized the severity of the situation when the brunette agent detailed her dream, her hidden goodbyes, in the tiled bathroom. If only, she had been able to stand with her on that hill. She'd do anything to protect her, to protect them, but she's never been any good with goodbyes. Her heart aches, her eyes burn, and her body sags with a heaviness that she thought she left behind at eighteen. When she exhales and it turns to sobs, she's almost certain the years have created this all.

Among her many silent and voiced wishes, her admittance of failures and falterings, the wind becomes less harsh. The sky lightens earlier, stays together longer, and, by the time the flowers begin to push through warmer days and less depressing nights, she understands that Emily is there. Her physical presence may be lacking, but she's hiding among the sweet smell of unraveling roses, she's the warmth of a weak spring sun, and her smile is in each promising sunrise and disparaging sunset. Her strength is the gentle wind that brushes errant hairs away from Garcia's wet cheeks. The tech holds her gazes in dark, damp soil that is the same rich color of Emily's eyes, and Garcia can't help but lavish in what's passed, what's to come, and what's been lost forever. When she views the three words that are meant to summarize a life, a colleague, a secretive woman, a friend, Garcia can't help but think about how wrong this is, how disjointed this feels, and how time has blended into some weird mixture of saline, muddy footsteps leading to a still new stone, and the memories that haunt her waking moments.

When she turns to leave, Garcia smiles because there's no one around to see how much she's missed this action, even if it feels hollower than it should. She knows by the worn grass path and smudged boot prints that the others have been here, probably much more than she can stand to be. One of these days, maybe somewhere in the near future, her lips will hide a coyness, a flame, that seems to have been momentarily distinguished. But, when she closes her eyes and the wind tickles her uncovered the skin, the damp soil smells of new promises, and somewhere in the sky birds tweet in an endless, yet happy, chatter, Garcia feels hope tingle and awaken her departed self. She sees Emily everywhere, in everyone, and she blows a kiss to her departed friend, hoping that she can be strong for those who have been left behind. She whispers her resolutions to the ghosts of the past, beginning the slow assent back to her altered world.

These days, she digs deep into herself, against herself, and braces herself for the storm that she knows may destroy them all.


	4. Seaver

**Hi everyone. Please don't hate on this particular POV. It was difficult to write and, at best, it's mediocre work on my part. I'm not a fan of the character, but I hope that's not too apparent. Thank you, however, for the lovely comments on past chapters. I guess the best part of this POV is there are many others, and better, ones to come. Happy Friday! :)**

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_"Long as I remember, the rain's been coming down. _

_Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground. _

_Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun. _

_And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?" _

_-CCR, "Who'll Stop the Rain."_

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These days, she takes the long route to the BAU, traveling on roads with large, Victorian homes, neatly trimmed hedges, and blooming gardens. She keeps the images of plastic-covered newspapers by front doors, children waving from yellow school buses, and mothers in robs, kissing their husbands goodbye somewhere inside of her, where she wishes she could live her life. This bliss isn't normal. It seems surreal, like some 1950s television sitcom, but she secretly loves, and envies, this almost non-existent form of life. She lingers on these roads, in these neighborhoods, because being in the BAU, silently observing grief's clutches, is too much. It hurts to see, to feel, and she wants to spend as little time as possible doing so. She knows Hotch is too preoccupied to comment on her tardiness. She knows that, these days, Morgan will raise his eyebrows in her direction when she finally flops onto her chair, but he'll return them to his files when his gaze begins to wander towards Emily's empty desk. Reid doesn't even glance her way, bending over incomplete work that she knows, even after eight hours of attention, he won't finish. The others are hidden in solitary offices, and she wonders if her classmates, the ones who are riddled with jealousy over her sheer luck to be placed on such a prestigious team, would like to be here now. She tiptoes to the bathroom, to the coffee station, occasionally dropping a cookie or a new mug of freshly brewed coffee on Morgan or Reid's desk. It's a gesture Emily would have done, and both men stare at her with a hollowness the sends shivers up her uncovered flesh. These are the days when she knows that she's always been a witness, an intruder, on other's grief.

When she returns home after a long day or case, she flops on the used couch, welcoming the purring of her roommate's fat, but loving, cat. Between absent minded ear scratches and delighted rumbles from the long-whiskered animal, she thinks of her past, her father, and she wonders if his victim's families were swallowed by despair too. Had they immediately packed away their loved one's possessions, shoving everything, a life really, into complete obscurity? Others, she knows, made shrines, suspending a life that had been cut too short. But her family, the family of a monster, was not allowed to grieve, to mourn, to show how badly they had been misled. People were never who she thought they were. Not her father, certainly not Emily, and now the team, the one she had been so eager and willing to join, seems deflated, like the many hopes she once harbored when she wasn't old enough to know better. When the cat curls closer, pressuring part of her airway, she allows the short intakes of air. It hurts to be alive, but it's a damn tragedy to watch everyone destroy themselves. Sometimes, when she thinks long enough, she knows that bearing witness, to pushing her own pain and feelings aside, is the only thing she's ever been really, naturally, good at, and, these days, that epiphany doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should.

On early mornings, she beats her alarm's wailing, rising quickly to grab the already-packed gym bag. Her roommate, a personal assistant to a powerful attorney, has brought home another guy from the bar the night before, and his clothes, their clothes, are strewn about the apartment. In the kitchen while she chews on a banana slathered with peanut butter, she spots a stray shoe, an expensive leather belt, and a lacy bra-the kind she only has a few of because, in all seriousness, it's been a long time since she's been in a relationship and it's been even longer since she's allowed anyone to stay in her bed. But she prefers a roommate who isn't in the FBI because she's not competitive, she doesn't care about the dead who haunt her each night, and she doesn't have to hear about how the BAU-most cadets' dream job-is less than amazing. She doesn't notice the disappointment, the flicker of sadness, in her voice after the end of a long day, a shocking case, or even a bout of personal insecurities. The roommate offers her a glimpse into a strange world, a world she never really belonged to, and she smiles offhandedly when she exits the apartment, turning the key in the metal lock, sealing off the distant remnants of two separate realities.

These days, the gym is her refuge, her home, and she takes out her frustrations, anger, and disappointments on the treadmill, the rows of punching bags, and, occasionally, the pool, swimming from side to side until she's sure her legs will burn off and her lungs will explode. She sees Morgan sometimes, but he never sees her or, if he does, he purposefully ignores her. Sometimes, she watches his strong body beat worn leather with taped and, eventually, bloody fists. The other agents in the Bureau's gym move away and she thinks that they're afraid of him and of the massive dark cloud they all can sense every time he's near. But, when she sees their downcast eyes, she knows it's because they're respecting his mourning, his rocketing emotions, and she leaves when the prickles sting behind her lids. She steps carefully around the older agent because his temper is legendary, yet, during quiet moments when Reid leaves his desk for the bathroom or coffee shop and everyone else is preoccupied with loneliness among stacks of paperwork, Morgan looks lost. He allows himself to stare at Emily's desk, and she can see the memories, the years, rushing to the forefront. His jaw clenches, his eyes brim but do not overflow, and then he's gone, disappearing to unleash his deluge in private. During these times, during his breaking, she wants to find Morgan and say she understands. She longs to hear stories about Emily, the ones she knows he's desperate to reveal but keeps inside because no one ever asks anymore. These days, she bites her lips, keeps her questions inside, and, one morning, she slips out of her own apartment unnoticed when she recognizes Morgan's familiar clothing strewn about in the early morning rays. That day, when he arrives at work later than she does, he sends her a glare that's meant as a warning and she understands. His bloodshot eyes scream of a hangover, of a man who is drowning with the need to forget, and she avoids his gaze. During this moment, these days of unpredictability, she keeps her distance.

Sometimes, she heads to Rossi's office because, unlike the others who keep her a few yards away, he has always been welcoming. When she had gloriously fucked up, it had been Rossi who put everything into some warped form of perspective. She won't tell him how much she needed that encouragement, or wake up call, but she thinks he understands anyway. He's not one to pry, they all aren't, but she can't help but feel less anxious when she steps inside the organized room. She sits on the chair opposite his desk, never invited, but her presence is accepted. Sometimes, he's busy with work, and she collects all the scribbles of pen against paper, thumb turning pages, and creasing vanilla folders that creak slightly when opened. These rustlings become a mantra, a soundtrack to normal, and it makes her heart bleed less. Sometimes, after Garcia has visited, Italian opera is blaring, and Rossi is not there. Yes, he's sitting behind his desk, but his vacant expression tells her that he's somewhere else, somewhere far removed, and she doesn't speak during these moments. Instead, she takes his hand, squeezing it gently before the release. The bout of touch brings him to life and he raises his red-rimmed eyes to meet hers. They never exchanges words, but, during these quiet times, she takes refuge in the fact that she can wear grief's mask too. Here, in these moments of dropped defenses, she allows a tear to travel down her cheek. These days, Rossi's office is the only place she feels safe.

When they're on cases, she watches Hotch with a fair amount of awe and an even larger amount of curiosity. His commands are clipped, yet assertive, and no one argues, even though, in another life, she knows Morgan would not fail to voice his opinions. But now, after everything that has spiraled, they all nod, heading in separate directions. Hotch's unflappable focus never wavers, never as much as trembles, and she can't make sense of this strength, of him, and what any of it means if it means anything at all. His stoicism is as legendary with her classmates just as much as Morgan's anger, Reid's intellect, and Rossi's experience, but, seeing it closely and watching his impenetrable walls makes her wonder, in a fit of amazement, what it's like when he breaks, if he ever does. But she knows he's in the throes of grief too, albeit a different type of one, and she sees the way he distances himself from the team, particularly from her. Her father was a serial killer, like the one that killed his wife, and she knows that he, subconsciously, cannot stand to have her near. Sometimes, on silent plane rides home that used to be filled with card games and the muffled sounds of syncopated beats emanating from Morgan's over-sized headphones, she watches his stoicism fade, wondering if he can even recognize the release after all the years of sorting through blackness. His tie is a bit looser these times, his muscles slacked, and his gaze lost, searching, and filled with regret. During these times when hued sunsets or starry skies shadow his face, she recognizes the guilt he harbors. It's in the way he observes how much scotch is left in the small flask Rossi stores on the plane for long rides back to Quantico. It ignites an old fire ball in his stare when Morgan's quick to react, but even faster to burn out and fade away. His face lines, contorts, and softens when he sees Reid unmoving, exhausted but not sleeping, staring out his own small window with an untouched book in his lap. Sometimes, in rare moments, his eyes meet hers and she swears she sees an apology, but, when the plane lands, the hardness is back and she always waits until his tall, rigid form disappears down the plane steps before she even moves from her seat. These days, she thinks there's a lot he's not explaining, not revealing, but, then again, she's not sure Hotch has ever been able to really share himself at all.

In the beginning, she assumed she and Reid, being the youngest members of the team, would become fast friends. She still hadn't grown accustomed to the tangents or fast spluttering of statistics that left her mind spinning to play a game of catch up that the others simply stopped trying to do long ago before they stopped all together. When his long fingers flick cards down on the plastic plane table during games of solitaire, she watches how effortlessly he calculates his next move, eyes shifting towards the unmistakable signs of a game's end. But these days, these times, in the aftermath of Emily's death, she can't help but feel cheated. He no longer speaks with intensity, passion, and she knows the others miss hearing his garbled, rushed, yet comforting, wording too. Purple crescents decorate his paling skin, his thinning frame, and, when she spots Hotch eying Reid's uncovered forearms and elbows creases from across the conference room, she thinks there's something other than shared grief that can destroy Reid. Sometimes, when she goes on aimless walks through the streets that are lit by increasingly longer periods of daylight, she spots him walking. Sometimes, she follows, keeping a safe distance, and always veering away when he heads towards the cemetery and down the familiar hill to Emily's grave. In the bullpen, she hears his faint sighs, his fidgeting that hasn't complete ceased, and she shifts her gaze to watch how he closes his eyes to rub his temples with shaking fingers. These days, Morgan notices too, meeting her own stare with concerned brown orbs, but the connection always breaks before she's sure it's there at all. Sometimes, during times when she sees Reid's ghost through every red line in the whites of his eyes, she wants to wrap her arms around him. She wants to tell him that it's alright, but she's never been a fan of lies. And, the thing is, these days, she's not sure if Reid will believe her.

Sometimes, Garcia drags her out for drinks, making a show of a girl's night. Morgan rolls his eyes lovingly and Reid stands statuesque, hands in pockets until Morgan lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, leading the younger outside with the promise of dinner she knows Reid won't eat. Over beers and whatever fruity concoction Garcia has ordered, she feels her walls drop. It's easy to be with Garcia. It's easy to forget the heaviness, the gnawing guilt and blame, but, if she looks long enough past the makeup and bright colors, the pain is there, swirling in Garcia's eyes obscured by contrasting glittery makeup. Sometimes, it's in the way Garcia's smile fades too quickly, or how she stares at the door, waiting for Emily's ghost to saunter through. When she thinks it's okay, she asks the tech analyst for memories, for moments that are, by any right, not hers to understand and know, but the transformation in Garcia's features is so swift, so wonderfully unexpected, that she gulps more amber liquid than she intends, waking the next morning with traces of a pounding headache. Yet, Garcia's brightness returns in a whirlwind and, suddenly, Ashley is immersed in everything she had missed: cases, practical jokes, bonds, and moments of lightness. She relishes Garcia's spirit, knowing the next day she will be dressed in neutral colors, hiding in her computer cave. These times, these days, she silently thanks Garcia for the small ray of light she's still able to muster and share. Sometimes, during times of inarticulate hope, she thinks that, if anyone can save the team from themselves and from the monster clutches of grief, it's Garcia. But she stays quiet because, one of these days, she understands that she, unlike Emily, never really belonged on the team at all.

These days, she tells Emily all of this, all of her fears and worries, and she wonders if stone can listen, can hold all the secrets she desperately releases on late afternoons drenched in the promise of a rapidly approaching spring. Her favorite moments are when the rain comes without warning, dumping down from an overcast sky with a patterned precision. It's the same type of storm that made the other children run inside, leaving bikes and toys on sodden front yards. She wasn't like the others, preferring to stand as the rain poured down her damp, sticking clothing. It's the same misplaced feelings now, as it always has been when you know you're a marked person, and she doesn't try to cover her body underneath the ancient oak trees half-filled with green leaves and unopened flower petals. Instead, she tilts her face upwards, breathes the smell of dampening soil, and cries freely. Around her, bending forward like the thin blades of green grass in the torrent's wind, are her regrets from a half-lived life. She couldn't protect Emily; have her back, like she foolishly and naively promised one day with an equally ridiculous gift of espresso. She tells the stone, she tells Emily, that she wishes she could have known her more, better, really, like the others do, did. She explains that she was a bad mentee, a bad friend, not to notice the telltale signs of trouble. After all, wasn't it her detachment that made her understand, that made her see, what the others could not? She tells Emily that she still doesn't agree with her need for secrecy, but she respects it. There are things that they all hide away, hide from, and she's starting to realize that hers is how alone she really is, how all-encompassing that really feels, and how she knows things will always be that way.

She kneels into the soft earth, soil staining her jeans as she reaches out light fingertips to brush three words that have become her promise to her mentor. She will not try to fill the space, the vast hollowness, she left behind. She will not use sarcasm as a defense, and she certainly won't joke with Morgan or comfort Reid like Emily once had, but she will try to be supportive for everyone as Emily would have been. She whispers these reassurances to the cold granite, lingering in the fast-approaching shadows. She can't change things, she can't right any past wrongs, but she can try to be strong. When she stands on tingling legs to leave, she hopes she can be who she desperately wants to be, who she needs to be for the team and for herself. She hopes that Emily is watching out for her, even though she's never really believed in the afterlife. As she walks away from the graveyard, following the familiar, muddied, shoe prints she knows have been made by her colleagues, she sets her gaze, stares ahead, and meets the inevitable storm that's rushing towards them all.

These days, she takes everything in, turns it around, buries it away, and becomes the carrier of pain, of grief and shame, because, these days, she has no idea how to be anything, or anyone, else.


	5. Rossi

**Hi everyone. Sorry about the delay. Life got in the way for a bit. Also, I've never written anything from Rossi's POV before and, needless to say, I didn't find it that easy...**

**This chapter is dedicated to R.M. (1961-2011).**

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_"Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be. _

_There's a shadow hanging over me._

_Oh, yesterday came suddenly."_

_-The Beatles, "Yesterday."_

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These days, the bitter singe of whiskey saturates his taste buds and burns his esophagus. He enjoys his drinks, as do many of his friends and family, but, these days, the alcohol is a cruel reminder that the world has never been fair. His hands twirl the glass in odd semi-circles and he watches the amber liquid slosh against the crystal container. He's always been an observer, a man who sees things differently than most, but, this time, these days, he accepts that there are different paths to travel. There are nights when he is sluggish and slow and half a drink is all it takes to initiate sleep. On other nights, he toasts her memory, moving a hand high in the air to slur some Italian phrase with the ghost of a smile, of her, traced in his wrinkled expression. Yet, on most days, he drinks because there is nothing else to do. There is nowhere to go; no one to join, and he drinks because it's what expected of him. He accepts that he is the only one on the team who can be this way, this calm and poised, just as he accepts that she's gone, and he's the only one who consciously understands this daunting, depressing fact. Sometimes, he even acknowledges that grief must take the cosmic reigns, but, more often than not, he drinks to squelch the uncertain future, spotted past, and the loitering memories pouring out from his tear ducts, creasing lines on his drooping skin. He does not drink to get drunk or to numb any feelings or traumatic experience, although he has many, yet, these days and nights in a dimly lit bar or his living room's favorite armchair, he begins to understand how the drink helps.

These days, he uses work as a shield, a weapon, and mask against his all too frequent hangovers. Every day, it becomes easier to hide in his office when he sees her empty desk. He walks straightly into the BAU, ignoring their prying, desperate, pleading eyes. During the times of morning blurs when the world is a still a bit fuzzy from the night before, he holds his breath and marches forward. It's easier to forget and pretend that he never knew her at all. But, when a satisfied smirk crosses his face, he realizes that, on most days, he really didn't know her. She wasn't just a FBI agent, a daughter of an ambassador, or even, simply, Emily; she was Lauren. She was a spy. And, for the rest of her days, she's dead. These days, when he allows himself to think of her porcelain skin, warm laugh, and swirling gazes, the realizations roll over him like waves and he wonders how long it will take to really drown.

Sometimes, even after he's accepted everything, accepted her, and accepted the missing pieces burning holes inside of him, he lets Seaver into his office. He can tell by the way she shoves her hands into her pockets, taking the seat across from his desk without meeting his gaze, that she feels both intruding and alone. Some days, he looks up from his work, placing files and folders aside, and he lets her talk. They discuss nothing, everything, and, during rare moments, he sees a strength and a promise that Ashley harbors. Yet, on most days, he talks in circles, in insinuated lines, detailing the past with astonishing vividness, as if everything is flickering onto some projector screen between the two. She asks some questions, nods to show her attention, bites her lip when she wants to speak out, but she always listens. He likes to think that he's helping and teaching Seaver. It's no secret the kid has known years of grief and its warped, oppressive clutch, yet, he cannot stop himself. Memories float through the room, pierce his heart, and steal his words. On the way home after a day of conversing, he realizes he's done most of the talking and that it was always, in one way or another, about Emily.

After long days when the world has stretched the barriers between night and day into an indistinguishable blur, he invites Hotch out for drinks. The man has never been good at small talk or much talk at all, but, many years prior, he realized that Hotch was a warmer drunk than he ever was coworker. The Hotch he knows these days is hidden underneath too many moments of pressing, weighted darkness. An intoxicated Hotch is all boyish smiles, chuckled laughter, and dimpled cheeks. Yet, this man, this inebriated apparition, cannot lead the team. Aaron is someone he understands, at least he thinks he does, maybe he used to, but, when Hotch does not bring his glass to touch his lips, Rossi's heart sinks. The man is shrinking away, pulling back, and hiding inside himself. He wants to blame Gideon, Foyet, Hayley, Doyle, and, oddly, he even wants to blame Jack. But it's not their fault. It's not the team, the past, or the many nights with a front row, blinked view of a white washed ceiling. Sometimes, he can feel the guilt Hotch carries and the knowledge of the other man's burden makes him sigh with relief when the unit chief finally leaves, mumbling an excuse he recognizes as a lie. These days, he thinks that the team's one hope has deserted them all.

But hope, as it always has proven to be, is a tricky, taunting shape shifter. Some days, when he looks as dejected as he feels, when Ashley doesn't bother ascending the stairs to his office, he senses Gideon's ghosts lurking in every corner. The man had lost his reserve and, although he once respected his decision to leave, he never really understood it until Emily haunted his dreams, throwing twinkling smiles and vulnerable gazes in every long shadow. On these days, he can't be as accepting, as helpful, as he wishes, so his office morphs into his private refuge. It works for a moment, maybe minutes, until Garcia arrives, floating in on a wave of color and armed with baked goods. He stares, blinks, and watches her lipstick covered mouth move in odd semi circles. It takes a while, but, eventually, he hears her sentences and they begin to form concrete ideas. He starts talking too, although he's never entirely sure when the conversation will fly off course, but the action makes his world a bit brighter. Sometimes, he even reaches for a baked good because, as everyone knows, Garcia's are the best. He finds himself telling the tech analyst about anything that comes to mind. He speaks of the days before the BAU was a team project. He talks of yesterdays, of resistance, of hard times, of battles won, and then, if he's feeling especially genuine, he details Italian operas with a precision, fluidity, and a passion usually only reserved for Reid when statistics spew from his mouth at blinding speeds. But the problem about opera, specifically Italian opera, is the language itself, which was one of the many Emily knew. Then, he's a shell, quivering, and Garcia is reaching for his hand. She never stays, not long, but, when she closes the door with a deafening click, he wishes she would have held his hand just a bit longer.

After trying days, he sometimes follows Morgan into the elevator because he's observed the tense muscles, clenched jaw, and sagging confidence that time and the job have created. They're all in pain, all experiencing the washing, aching, numbing resistance associated with losing a colleague, a friend, and Morgan is a road map of anger, denial, and depression. The younger agent, one he has come to respect after all these years, does not look pleased to be sharing a small tin box with him, but he ignores the glares by staring at their warped, widened reflections in the elevators doors. He only speaks after the doors ping to a close and the BAU is a few stories away.

"Bar?" It's one word that's phrased like a question, but he knows Morgan will follow. There's only one bar they frequent and, at the end of these days, Rossi can never remember if he found it by chance, someone showed it to him, or it was all Morgan's doing. The decor is dark, the lighting low, and the table is gleaming pine, but it feels safe and predictable when they sequester themselves into a comfortable corner booth. They sip their usual drinks, staying quiet until half the potent liquid has disappeared and Morgan has ordered some fried appetizer that they both pick at, staining white paper napkins with grease-crusted fingertips. Yet, for all the quiet desperation that's present these days, they speak. They talk of memories, of her, and, as the drinks increase in size and number, they begin to profile other patrons. It feels good, remarkably light, and, before he's realized he's missed it, Morgan's grinning wildly and laughing at a rare moment of happiness they've manage to resurrect from the gallows. This new found, yet old and odd, levity does not last, and the heaviness returns with a crushingly strong grasp. When Morgan's gaze meets the table and his fingers tighten white knuckles around a glass, Rossi understands the unspoken desire, the pleading whisper, and he wishes he never believed in teamwork or closure at all. He wishes he wasn't so accepting so he could join Morgan in his quest for something, anything, to ease the pain.

"She wouldn't want us to be doing this, Rossi." But, the thing is, they are and, these faded days, he has no idea how to stop.

Sometimes, he feels like he's wasting his life, his gifts, and he tries to be strong in order to accept what's happened and what's to come. It's not hard, this ease, although he feels like, after all he's seen, it should be more difficult. The job, his job, and the years of defeat have trained him well. Too well. He's no stranger to loss and to death. Hell, his life has been made by studying death, by studying those who kill, yet, for all he experiences and witnesses, this death is just too real. This death, her death, is too close. When he scans the bullpen or the plane's cabin during a silent ride home, he realizes that there are many ways to die. And, when he looks past the walls that have been slapped together by an angry, lost, scared, and faltering man, he realizes that Reid may be the one person on the team he understands more than he ever expected he would.

He knows the kid is used to loss and sudden whirlwinds of change. He is a chameleon, shifting into each new situation with an awkward grace even though this metamorphosis does not always fit him like it does the others. The clothes are too baggy, the gaze too distant, and the words too mumbled, but he marches on, marches through, and, somehow, over days of endless doubt, he realizes that he has come to deeply respect Reid. Despite rocky beginnings, he has grown to appreciate and love the ramblings, statistics, and quirks just as much as Morgan. Now, with Emily's presence lacking and disintegrating through every hole and crack, he thinks that Reid has finally met the ultimate match. These days, he absorbs the young agent's shrinking frame, shaking limbs, and winces of pain. He waits for long tangents and hides his surprise when they do not exit the thin lips like poetry flows through the dusty shelves of used bookstores.

Sometimes, if he feels brave, he asks Reid out for drinks. The doctor always declines, shuffling away with steps that seem likely to veer off course with the slightest gust of wind. Yet, after long days and still longer nights, he leaves a bar, breathing the fresh air and feeling tired enough to sleep without nightmares until he feels a familiar presence watching from somewhere close by, yet far away. Subconsciously, his fingers rest on the outline of his gun hidden underneath his coat as his eyes scan the crowds, ticking off those too drunk to stand, too young to feel so much pain, and too naive to understand it all. Before his gaze meets a lone one usually perched across the street, he realizes that the declines are more than just depression and social anxiety. He remembers Hotch's assessing, quick study of the gangly limbs and elbow folds, and his stomach burns with the insinuated knowledge that, at one time before he knew Reid, there were small dots and entryways that could ruin a brilliant world. In these times of recognition, he meets Reid's gaze until it feels like they're the only two people who matter on a darkened street underneath washed out flickers of jaundiced yellow. He longs to cross the road, to take Reid protectively into his arms, and to explain that it's okay to let everything go. He wants to tell the young man that he knows, he understands, and that it will get better because it cannot get much worse.

For all the damage he inflicts onto his liver, he never visits her intoxicated. He owes her that much and she's better than that, although he never questions if he's above stumbling into his home at morning's early hours, reeking of whiskey and quiet screams. His visits always begin with a quick prayer that he usually chants in Latin or Italian. She was a skeptic, but she also respected tradition, habits, and the need to right the rapidly diminishing light and tilting world. Some days, he brings flowers, leaving the modest bouquet alongside other trinkets. He recognizes all their presences in these odd decorations and the realization, the sight, tugs his lips into a wobbly smile. The path to her grave is worn with mismatched shoe prints, and he likes to think that she wouldn't want all this fuss. He also knows she'd secretly love this outward display of affection just the same.

On days that have been scattered with soft spring rain, he closes his eyes when his shoes sink his weight into thick mud. Around him, the morning light begins to reach towards the other stones, pinging weak rays off of grave markers. It's a sea of fallen soldiers and losing battles, and, in this place of quiet reflection, he remembers what it's like to feel. He brushes the words engraved into granite and wonders if everything she is and was could be nearly wrapped into three descriptions. She's more than those three estimations, more than he ever thanked her for being, and he closes his eyes to the tears, pushing the burning liquid outwards.

Every day, he tells her how he is, how he was, and he begs for her forgiveness. He promises that he'll be a better coworker, person, and friend because, for as far as they've all come, the team is still hurting, aching and oozing with raw wounds that time has not yet healed. She hid from them, for them, and he's grateful he was able to understand immediately the need for secrecy and protection. Emily was a fierce competitor, a defender, and she loved them openly and fully. Around him, the world unravels from a long night, and he studies the way the blades of grass become brilliant shoots in the strengthening sunlight. The rich smell of damp soil mixed with twittering birds and the distant sound of the highway's rush hour commute envelopes him in a safe cocoon. When he tells her what he really means and feels, he hopes she can understand how sorry he is and was for all the times he failed to keep her together and alive. Some days, he thinks she'd tell him that these weighted apologies aren't worth his time and tears, but he cannot leave one more damned thing unfinished. As the sun meets the middle of the sky, he whispers his goodbyes and grazes rough palms over cool stone. His shoes meet the marks of the others who have passed this way and he never fails to focus on the flowers that are emerging from the earth with alarmingly beautiful colors and warmth.

These days, he accepts that she's gone, and he promises himself that he will remember it all, remember everything, remember her, because, these days, he has no other way to keep himself together.


	6. JJ

**Hi everyone. I haven't forgotten about this story, but I am sorry I've taken so long to update. These character chapters are difficult to write because I really want to try and get down to the grit of every emotion and action. For some reason, JJ was harder than the most (even Rossi's). However, there has been some good news on the CM front: JJ and Emily are returning and Seaver's leaving! :)**

**Thank you for all the quality reviews and patience. Enjoy!**

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_"Believe in me and this lie. Tell me everything will be alright because it's so good to believe." -Third Eye Blind, "Palm Reader."_

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These days, she listens to the sounds of the early-morning as her senses awaken from a shadowed slumber. On her right side, Will's light snores synch with Henry's, which she can hear through the white plastic monitor stationed on the nightstand. Some days, the world outside is filled with chirping birds, beeping garbage trucks, and the thwacks of running sneakers against hardened pavement. Other days, the syncopated pattering of rain lulls her back to sleep until the alarm clock's shrill shrieks send her into the broken world. Yet, on most mornings, she stares at the ceiling and tries to blink away the emptiness inside her because, these days, it's easier to live a lie than it is to tell the truth.

Working for the DOD has its perks and its highs and lows, but nothing prepared her for the formality behind every address and look. These days, she takes strength from the memory of Hotch's leadership, and she works through her shifts with remarkable composure. Every piece of paper is like an old address. Every meeting is a warning, and every interaction is like a difficult, yet simultaneously delicate, press conference. She'd never admit this openly at her new job, but she misses the BAU. She misses the mayhem, the brief moments of lightness, and the games of cards and chess on a plane ride home. On days when she's forced to smile at another lame joke or to finish stacks of paperwork not even Reid could complete, she yearns for the media mobs and information lulls. Some days, her veins have turned cold, her memories frozen, and, when she presses her hands to her throbbing temples, she wonders when she turned to ice.

While she longs for the team on most days, she is secretly grateful she doesn't have to be at the BAU. The hospital waiting room with its stark white walls was a horrible mirror that reflected false tears as she unearthed the most destructive lie she's ever told. After that long night, she stumbled home with tingling fingertips and a throbbing knowledge that it couldn't get much worse than a sterile waiting room and wailing colleagues; however, the funeral with its mockingly bright sunshine was a ironic, nagging reminder that some lies, while needed, could create, widen, and intensify even the smallest of rifts. Those days had been a painful test of her will, self composure, and, more than once, she almost turned to run away from the false grave, lost friends, and old worlds. Seeing their grief, hugging the sobbing Spencer and squeezing Garcia's hands had been meaningless gestures that were too filled with meaning. Morgan's burning, focused stare had been reassuring just as Rossi's wavering one had almost caused the whole facade to shatter into splintered pieces of truth that, if revealed, would end more than one friendship.

On the days of pouring spring rain, she sits in car, idling in the cemetery's parking lot while she waits for sunshine to expand once more. It feels nice to be alone near her grave-site, although it shouldn't because it's an empty gesture, but she ignores her twisted stomach and stubbed fingernails. She cannot bring herself to exit the car and to feel her heels sink into the soft earth as she paths her way down to the granite stone etched with an epithet she chose because it was the only way she knew how to make everything right. Sometimes, she leaves the radio playing so softly the words are inaudibly bursts of disjointed notes and changing keys. Sometimes, she thinks this is the right thing to do; sometimes she hates herself, and, some days, the rain stops, the clouds part, and she feels a slight vibration of peace. It never stays or even lasts, but it moves something in her, something she left behind all those years ago when the last bag was packed and she had a one-way ticket out of her hometown. Yet, on most afternoons, the rain does not stop and a painful, harsh racking leaves her hunched over the steering wheel while her hands clutch the circular sides. During those days of release, she pulls down the rear view mirror, adjusts her hair and makeup, and returns to her office before her lunch break is done. Sometimes, she wishes that one damn person would ask her if she's okay.

These days, she realizes that she probably is the only one who can really be alright because, unlike the other team members, she does not have to see grief work its clutches into every heavy movement, feigned smile, gritted remarks, and far-off stare. There are days when she closes her eyes and she's walking through hallways that lead to a series of desks that she can see so vividly it's like she there, standing in a dimly lit room after a late-night case. The cluster of wooden slabs is welcoming, and she imagines Morgan's half-cluttered one, Reid's obsessively neat space, and Emily's desktop lined with papers and random mementos she collected over the years. There's a picture of three teenage best friends with youthful expressions that are accentuated by distant, high Roman cathedrals. One of Reid's rockets is next to her computer and, directly across from a teetering stack of case files, is a propped birthday card -the very first one she received from the BAU team. By now, the dust has probably settled among and over everything, and she knows how Morgan's eyes will shift over and dart back to his work before he can feel the situation and all of its bloodied consequences. Garcia will walk by, standing in silent recognition before fleeing into her computer cave, and Rossi will look at the pine piece of furniture with an acceptance he understands, but with a pain no one can squash. Only Hotch will ignore the gaping hole because he knows the twisted truth, but it's the vision of Reid's lost, vulnerable stare that's too much. When she opens her eyes to her own office that's rigid and stark like Hotch's is, she knows that she has to be the one to empty Emily's desk. They're all too close, in too much pain, and it's only fair. It's her penance. She calls Hotch's number that's still programmed to speed dial, explaining what she wants. On that day, she's not surprised when he doesn't disagree.

Even though she no longer works for the BAU, she checks on her old coworkers, her best friends, because Hotch shouldn't be the only one to watch them unfold. Under the duplicity of separation, she believes Rossi is easiest, so she finds a time when she knows he'll be home. Often, it's on her way home from work, and her heels click reassurances against the stone slabs that compose his front walk. There are takeout bags in one hand and fountain drinks in the other and she pauses at the front door. Around her, the quiet neighborhood glows in the warm spring sun and a neighbor strikes a lawn mower a few times before it roars to life. Other than the machine, it's serene, and she releases all her breath because this cannot be difficult. Rossi is accepting, if not insanely so, and she pushes the doorbell with a smile on her face. But, when the wooden barrier creaks open and the smell of alcohol makes her eyes water, she thinks this may be worse than she thought, anticipated, or planned. Rossi's hair is too disheveled, his smile too quick, and his eyes too bloodshot, yet he steps aside, allowing her to pass through the threshold of grief.

Sometimes, they work silently together, opening cardboard containers and eating a slow meal that eventually leads to stories of the team, of old cases, and times with Emily. She puts on a mask, laughing when appropriate, staying silent when she has no words, and leaning forward to squeeze Rossi's icy fingertips when it looks like he needs the comfort. This facade isn't hard. After all, she often dealt with countless victims' distraught families, yet, these days, when she finally turns to leave after one or two drinks Rossi has managed to pour, the sun has set, the night is uncomfortably chilly, and she exhales everything into the damp air. When she goes to her car and sits in the soft leather, she wants to scream that this is all her fault. These days, she simply understand there's no way to fix anything anymore.

On random days, she calls Spence in some half-attempt to evaluate how he feels and how he's coping, even though she knows he's probably not. Still, she sighs in relief when his mumbled tones breaks through incessant rings. There's always an immediate quiet after he recognizes her voice, and she sends silent warnings that she hopes will break through his carefully constructed walls and defenses. Sometimes, he rambles about something so forcefully that she has to grip the edges of a nearby solid object to steady herself. The statistical rampage is a cover for pain too deeply felt and ignored, and she bites her lips as tears canvas her paling cheeks. She knows, however, if Reid hears one trace of her emotions, the charade will dislodge itself and she's not sure she can do that to Hotch, to Reid, and to Emily.

If it's late and she's at home while Reid unknowingly breaks her into pieces through wired connections, Will notices her tears and squeezes her shoulders in a way that reassures her that she's as alive as Reid is lost. She wants to, but cannot erase his wounded voice as it echoes through the plastic receiver. Will doesn't know the truth, but he knows the weight she carries, and she leans into his frame for needed support, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of his cologne and stray remnants of baby powder. Then, only then, does she attempt to stop Reid's tangent. She tries to ask about the team, about his well being, but he becomes a wordless, vacant shell. More than once, she's pondered driving on dark, shadowed streets to bang misery on his apartment's front door, but the look she knows will be hiding in his large hazel orbs convinces her to stay away. Sometimes, after ending a phone conversation with Reid, she calls Morgan and murmurs that she's worried and that she thinks Reid's slipping and falling like so many years prior, and the older agent understands the insinuation and promises to take care of him. She feels the need to connect with Reid like she once did so effortlessly, but she doesn't, she can't, visit.

Through the electric connection, she begs Reid to stop by, even using Henry as bait, but she's not at all shocked when he refuses. Reid can tell she's a ghost of the person she once was, and she can practically hear his accusing hisses when the dial tone thunders in her ears. She stops calling so frequently, but not worrying, and that's when the postcards start. They're colorful, welcoming, yet oddly haunting. Sometimes, the post mark is old and the price stickers are still attached, but they're always from various places, cases, and she looks at each disjointed setting with a vague sense of detachment before flipping the card over to read his message. The looped handwriting never details more than a sentence or brief thought, but, when her heart skips a beat and her body becomes instantly cold, she knows just how damaged he's become.

_Don't you ever wish the rain was enough?_

That message displayed on the back of a Niagara Falls card is the last proof she needs. She stops calling, stops asking, and tries to ignore the blood-curdling screams the bolt her awake from nightmares where she's an unsub who's plunged a knife into Reid's heart. In pressing darkness, Will's arms snake around her trembling body and she buries her sobs into his chest as guilt racks her world. These days, she understands the burns and scars associated with failure.

Unlike Reid, Garcia does visit. She swoops in on a cloud of color, glimmering the past off of the kitchen walls, steaming mugs of tea, and green blades of backyard grass. Penelope plays with Henry, escorting him onto the scales of a fiery dragon, cotton candy cloud puffs, and rolling, shark-infested seas. They run around the yard and JJ watches from afar, studying how Garcia not only pretends, but also morphs into whatever crazed scheme Henry has developed. Finally, when he loses interest and wanders to the sandbox or falls asleep in the warm spring sun, Garcia plods back to her side, flopping into a spare chair. The two exchange words, formalities from another life, but Garcia doesn't seem to want to talk these days. Her laughter is quick, but the sound fades immediately. The light that used to dance in her eyes flickers like a flame in a fall breeze, and her once careless expression melts into a pained form of recognition. She sees the grief, its haunting clutches and firm grasps, and she wants to tell Pen everything. Instead, she purses her lips together, leans forward, and, when her stomach lurches, she tells Garcia it's good to see her. What she doesn't say, yet what she longs to scream, is how sorry she is for everything. This lie seems like it's the only thing that matters and, when Garcia finally goes to leave, squeezing the media liaison a bit too tightly, she retreats behind a feigned smile she's sure Garcia understands, but refuses to see. After those days, she opens a bottle of wine and downs more than half before Will gently eases the liquid container back to the shelf. These times, she eyes the photographs of her old friends that canvas her home and fights the urge to shatter the glass-covered memories against the solid walls.

When the nightmares are too violent, repeat on endless loops, or when she cannot sleep, she rises early, tiptoeing around the dimly lit bedroom as she grabs running clothing from various drawers. She doesn't tie sneakers to her feet until she's downstairs and, after a scribbled note for Will, she hits the pavement with satisfying smacks. There, and only on the beginning of days, all her anger, frustration, and burning, seething pain is released. She runs for the team, for the lie she had to tell, and for her inability to escape its clutches. She runs away from the job she does not want and did not ask for just as much as she runs far from her old life that was filled with madness, but supported by love. On these half-lit mornings on empty streets, she never looks at the man who has fallen in tempo at her side, but she knows he's running for the same reasons. She knows they're too similar to really develop a close bond, but this knowledge is precisely why he's here when she is, chasing sleep, lifelong demons, and ugly feelings of inadequacy. They've both been running for so long that she understands the silence, the quick looks, and the nods that stretch the brief jog into a few miles of sharp inhalations and eventual side cramps.

Sometimes, they stop underneath trees in a park, breathing heavily and clutching their spazing muscles. When their eyes meet, she thinks this is the closest anyone will ever get to really understanding, to really seeing, Derek Morgan. As the morning breaks into early day with stretches of endless blue, she looks into the rich, swirling gaze and sees how alone he really feels. She sees Emily dying; the blood pooling between his strong, capable hands, and she has to turn her gaze towards her brightly-colored sneakers before she breaks entirely. Sometimes, his fingertips brush her shoulder and the feeling of another human being's gentleness lines goosebumps onto her uncovered flesh. On days when the skies look threatening or Derek's expression is tormented by memories neither one will voice, they wordlessly turn back and run home. Other times, Morgan catches her eyes so she can see the strength created by hardships and the promise of protection that's etched within. And, on rare days, they walk to the nearest coffee spot together, talking and joking like nothing has changed as sweat dries and sticks to their skin. When she finally returns home and her damp clothes are peeled off and abandoned on the bathroom floor, the hot water soothse her aching muscles and rampant thoughts. On these days, she thinks Derek has taught her more than she'll ever be able to express.

The only days she sees Hotch are when he's beginning to falter under the weight of fake integrity. She didn't think it was fair to involve him from the beginning, but Clyde had been adamant, and she hadn't disagreed because, even then, she felt internally relieved. If anyone could understand the need for discrepancy, protection, and secret oaths, it was Hotch. For as unflappable as she's always known him to be, there are days when she thinks that this monster, this one charade, could destroy them all. But she lives for his brief texts and the blocked letters that arrive at sporadic moments because, for a few wondrous minutes, she knows she's not alone.

It seems odd, but they always meet at a cheerily decorated, bustling cafe, as if canary yellow walls and blaring bubble-gum pop songs can bolster their sadness into some form of joy. Their movements are too slow for the fast-paced establishment, and their neatly pressed clothing, wrinkled eye lines, and black coffees reveal their age before anyone really notices. Usually, they sit outside, away from the loud clusters of teenagers sipping sugary concoctions masked as caffeine fixes, and they stare at nothing, at everything, until one breaks. If she goes first, she whispers about the newest scraps of information she's been lucky enough to receive and, on very fortunate days, she's able to share a few morsels of intelligence she should not have overheard. Mostly, on these meetings days, Hotch talks in low, rushed, worried tones about the team, about how they're all dealing by not dealing, and about how he's afraid they're breaking apart by falling apart. What he doesn't say through thin lips and clenched jaw muscles is how responsible he feels and how this burden is canvassing his life. These days, she realizes he doesn't have to say much of anything because she understands the burning aches, the sleepless nights, and the knowledge that could destroy more than one world. Instead, she meets his gaze with an unwavering one, and promises that everything will be alright. And, some days, when his usually dark expression glows for even a fraction of a second, she swears Hotch believes her.

On days when she manages to find herself again, she visits the empty grave adorned with an eclectic arrangement of flowers and random gifts. There's a Russian poem that she's positive Reid propped against the granite front. Out of respect, she does not commit the words to memory or attempt to translate the foreign message. Garcia leaves small trinkets, but the childish decorations set a wobbly smile onto her weakened expression. She can never tell if Morgan or Rossi have left the long-stem roses, but she knows that the action is a deeply felt one. Some days, she talks to the nothingness and explains that she's trying to keep herself, and everyone else, together. She explains the mundane movements of everyday life, even detailing how Henry is growing so quickly she's afraid he'll be in college before she sees his progression. She tells the stone how worried she is for her, and how this concern gnaws at her stomach with a dull, consistent ache. A quick conversation at a Paris cafe had not been enough closure because she can still feel Emily's empty, determined eyes bearing into hers. In that suspended moment, she saw a glimpse of the past, and she explains to the stone that she can always come home when it's all over, if there ever will be an end to this convoluted chaos. She talks about her new job, her old one, and, finally, the memories surface when a light rain sprinkles the surroundings with congealed walls of water. In the mist, she tells the granite front, tells Emily, she thinks that all her years have led to this lie, and, even if she dies protecting her, she will not falter. The response is always silence that's outline by the smell of damp earth, but she understands that she must believe in herself in order to believe in this lie. When she turns to leave with quick strides that match the other imprints along the way, she acknowledges that this burden is not solely hers, but, yet, she sees why she must be the one to even its teetering weight.

These days, she finally understands the importance of distance.


	7. Morgan

**Hi everyone! Hands down, this was the most difficult POV to write so far. I hope it was worth that wait though. I only have Emily's chapter left and it will definitely be posted before the end of the summer.**

**Happy reading! :)**

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_"And when she died in your arms late that night in the dark, did you pray for your God to come home? Cause it ain't fair to say that these tracks are the same. So, God, if you can hear me, crash this train." -Joshua James, "Crash This Train."_

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These days, he wakes before the sun's rays twinkle dew drops off of blooming surroundings and he forgets that there ever was a barrier between night's pressing blackness and morning's weak promise of warmth. He sits in the kitchen in rumpled pajamas or sweat-stained workout clothes, feighning interest as the beams extend and refract a misguided, unwanted light off the white walls and smooth tiles. The gurgling coffee pot and Clooney's thumping tail create a syncopated, lulling rhythm. Sometimes, he remembers how his father stood with a hip propped against the kitchen counter, holding a ceramic, faded mug snaked between his fingers. Out of his neatly pressed uniform, he looked like any other father, any other man, and Morgan smiles at the memory of disheveled hair, the comics page, and how the air became permeated with the smell of rich, chocolate-colored coffee beans. But he's no longer a child. He no longer smiles at inked cartoons and he can no loner precisely recall the sound of his father's voice. He's lived years beyond that moment, that time, yet, these days, he feels the familiar, old, monumental stillness of grief. When the coffee is finally brewed, he stands at the glass slider door, watching the world wake from a long slumber, arriving in the form of a lone brilliant band of smudged colors. There are days he loves this waiting, this intense moment of reflection, but it never lasts. By the time his cup is done, he feels an emptiness that has nothing to do with temporary caffeine remedies. These mornings, he cannot live alone any longer, and he rushes through his routine in order to slam the door on a world he does not recognize.

These days, these mornings, usually come after shadowed nights. The bar he and Rossi frequent is a main-stay in the area. There are regulars with hunched backs, toothless mouths, and cloudy eyes. There are stools filled with blue-collar workers who drink harder than they live. There are quiet college kids who buy the cheapest pitchers and spread papers over a tables that wobble when weight is applied to one side. Sometimes, he studies the students more intently than most, and, sometimes, he envies their movements. A flick of a pencil, a sigh, and turn of a page- all these things seem so commonplace. These days, he stares at the amber liquid in his glass and wonders when, exactly, he arrived at this particular crossroad. These days, choosing a direction seems near impossible.

"I miss her too." Rossi always says, stirring his whiskey with a tiny straw. His anger seethes, boils, but does not explode. During these days of misplaced furry, he nods, gulps more alcohol, and does not say a word. These days, he's not sure if he'll ever know how to fix anyone, anything, or himself again and this thought doesn't bother nearly as much as he thinks it should.

There are days, nights, and times that Rossi pretends not to notice his lost voice and there are times when Rossi chooses to speak, filling the musicless environment with stories of Emily. Derek laughs so he won't cry, drinks bitter hops so he will forget, and sometimes, when this works, he wakes with stiff joints and a pounding headache in his own home. When it doesn't, he loses himself in a wash of agonizingly loud booming beats, hoards of bleary-faced strangers, sweaty swaying bodies, and potent drinks. The next morning he wakes in a home he does not recognize and he leaves whatever bed he's found himself in, shimmying into clothes with surprising speed and agility. Sometimes, he thinks there must be more to life and that Emily would want more for him, for them both, but he's at a loss to see why he can't drink himself, memories, and nightmares into oblivion. During these delusionally lucid moments, he think that he'll see her among all this confusion. These days, not much else makes him smile.

Most days, he tries to forget by using whatever is convenient. At work, there are mounds of paperwork, and he hunches over the stack with a pencil gripped in his right hand. He focuses on the scratch of lead against manufactured pulp, the ticking of the overhead clocks, the sudden erruptions of white sheets and square blocks from printers, and the faint taping of fingers against plastic keyboards. He keeps tempo with this odd rhythm, pausing occasionally to stretch his aching muscles and creaking joints. There are times when the pile lessens, and he shifts his numb tailbone and tired eyes in another direction. But these distractions are dangerous, almost deadly, because his eyes always wander to her desk. Before it was cleared one night, Emily's things waited for her to return. The pen with its chewed cap, framed picture of two boys with a Rome backdrop, and even a faded birthday card from the team, do not know that Emily, the desk's occupant, his coworker, partner, and friend, is gone. He tries to keep the suffocating, chocking memories at bay, but she dances around him, folding onto his own desk from the jaundiced light bulbs overhead. In a moment, he knows he is losing, he always has been, and he bolts. The chair scrapes against the linoleum floor, his boots pound a path to a deserted conference room or bathroom stall, and he comes dangerously close to allowing others to see the hot, breathtaking tears as they burn his cheeks. These days, he'd give anything to trade places with her because nothing, not even death, can make him feel as powerless as the saline liquid that is released without thought, care, or warning.

During his stronger and more composed moments, he is reminded of what everything was like before his world, her world, and their world became a complicated web of death, love, and depression. He smiles at her memory; he smiles at her smile, and he lets his eyes land on his other coworkers. He knows it's natural to find the lone female profiler on the team, but he cannot help or stop the rage that is so easily ignited. Seaver is alternating between studying files, old cases, scribbled notes, and textbooks, and he watches her lips form inaudible words. It's not that he doesn't like her because she hasn't given him a chance not to, but he can't stand how she tiptoes around everyone, especially him. She does not ask when she should, and does not pry because it doesn't feel right. Sometimes, he wants to lash at her, to scream that she'll never be everything Emily is or was, but he bites his tongue and slams a fist against the gym's punching bag, which leave his knuckles decorated with a perpetual half-healed scabs. He cannot blame her, although he wants to, he longs to, but, one hungover morning when he recognizes her face grinning from a photograph in, yet another, stranger's apartment, he understands that the beautiful woman with the alluring smile from the bar the night before is her roommate. That day, he slinks into work late, meeting Ashley's eyes with a burning gaze. She stays quiet, so does he, and he wishes that the bitter laste lining his mouth would disappear. He wishes Seaver would disappear. He wishes he would disappear.

Yet, Hotch is the one who's disappearing, shrinking into a man, a leader, he scarcely recognizes. Aaron's orders are clipped, controlled, and he is reminded of mornings so long ago, standing at attention in a taunt line as the early-morning flog rolled at his combat-boot covered feet. Hotch is their commander, their general, but the man is becoming a shell. On dark, starless nights after trying cases, he blares music, any beat really, into his ears via oversized headphones. He sits in his usual seat because they do not play cards or chess anymore. Even the memory of these lighter distractions feels both void and overwhelming, so now they sit apart, and away, from one another in fear of losing even the smallest portion of their collective world. While the team is all pulling away and breaking apart, it's Hotch's self-implosion that is most glaringly obvious and maddeningly secretive. The man buries his black eyes against an opaque window, searching the sky for an infinite set of reasons to explain what is happening, what already has whirled past, and how he should have, could have, stopped it all. But the thing is, these long nights and fragmented days, Morgan does not understand why Hotch's mourning explodes a ball of sadness in his chest. More than once, he's had to catch his breath and bite his lip to stop the onslaught of emotions. Sometimes, he meets the unit chief's look across a quiet aisle or a cluttered bullpen, and he cannot stand it anymore. When he sees the pain, the guilt and shame, he always breaks the connection first. Hotch is the strongest person he knows. Hotch cannot break, even though he knows the man already is. But he pretends to not see Hotch's faltering because, if the leader dissolves, there is no hope at all.

There are days, moments, and times where he feels himself losing touch with them, with Emily, and with everything and everyone he thought he loved. He tears through forms and files, studying each case too intently. During times of burning longing, he releases his frustrations on the job, the very same one that took Emily away. He couldn't save her and he cannot save his rapidly diminishing self, but he sure as hell can try to save others. Cases and victims hold him together, break him apart, and, sometimes, he can barely stand the act anymore. He is drowning, suffocating under the immense weight of it all, and he goes to the one person he knows can hold him together by allowing him to fall apart.

On those nights, his feet find their way to Garcia's home and its colorful, mocking representation of the person she, he, and they used to be. She always lets him in; he always feigns interest in conversation, and it's never long before he breaks. When the tears come, he does not hide in a bathroom stall with one hand shoved in his mouth to prevent noise while the other props his sagging body against Lysol-scented tiles. These times are raw displays of mourning, and he allows Garcia to comfort him. When her arms cocoon around him and he smells her familiar vanilla scent, he lets the deluge control, lead, and overpower him. She always tells him it's okay by pulling him closer, so close he can feel how her body shakes with her own repressed emotions. She does not try to make him smile with too far in between pet names and sexual innuendos, and he almost feels bad for his inability to help her. But, these nights, he does not apologize. He does not acknowledge these long-lost lighter times, but, instead, he pretends that he is broken enough to be helped, to be fixed, to be haphazardly placed back together, even if he knows that's no longer an option because it's been many years since he's been whole.

"Derek," His name is mumbled into the phone, and he sits a bit straighter at the tense tone, muscles burning from his odd sleeping position. The couch cushions sag with his weight. Beer bottle necks cast lengthy, shadowed reminders onto walls lit by the artificial neon glares glowing from the muted television. He murmurs a response while rubbing his sleep-filled eyes with balled fists.

"I'm worried about Reid." JJ's voice is suddenly wavering, crackling through the phone's receiver. Instinctively, his fingers tighten and he can imagine the white outline on each of his knuckles. He wants to scream that she should be fucking worried about the kid, about all of them, but he swallows the fiery rebuttal deep into his stomach where it has room to morph into an uneasy, burning guilt.

"Do you think he's..." What he wants to say these times, means to say, is 'relapsed' but the word will not materialize. On the television, a man waves a mop over a dirty-streaked floor. The woman at his side rounds her cherry red lips into an oval. He stares at his one free hand and sees Emily's blood caked within the dry lines surrounding his palms.

"No." JJ's voice is stern now, and he audibly sighs. He wants to ask why she is so worried, and why she always calls him at 2 A.M. after long cases, but he doesn't ask anymore- not like he used to or like he should. Instead, he promises to help, to protect Reid from himself, and, when he hangs up the phone, he rolls his head back, easing tight, overstretched muscles against couch cushions. What he needs, what they all really need, is time, but there isn't any time to grieve. Not for them, and certainly not now. Not when things are so complicatedly crushing.

These times, he stretches, grabs his keys, and hits the streets- the very same ones he jogs on at JJ's side during quiet morning runs where he feels a thin layer of trust and understanding stretch between him and the old media liaison. He knows she called because she's panicking and feels helplessly removed, and, yet, he also understands that both he and JJ run from themselves, but not from others.

If the night is chilled or it's cold and raining, he drives, but, usually he walks. This easy pattern helps straighten his muddled, alcohol-inflicted thoughts. With each step against pavement that echoes the sounds of his sneakers against quiet, unlit homes, he feels a calmness return. Emily's here, or maybe she never left, and he stands a bit taller, walks a bit brisker, and ignores that burning in his gut. He is the team's protector and the only one who loyally and silently vows to help, fix, or save them all, and he cannot fail her, himself, or Reid. Not when it's this late, dark, and there's this much to lose. He retraces familiar steps to bars he know Reid won't visit, to meeting places he fears he might, and, finally, to the pristine stone marker bearing the FBI inscription. These nights of searching, he almost sighs in relief, but it's late; he's too late, and there's not a damn thing he can do about any of it anymore.

He does not speak, but moves under star-strewn skies. The dew blades seep through the mesh in his sneakers, but the wet, lingering, cold feels refreshingly normal, as if he's alive and has not really noticed until this warped moment when the horizon begins to lighten into a muddle gray and an upcoming, yet still far-off, morning. Somewhere in the trees above, an animal scatters, claws and body scampering over uneven bark. He pries his eyes away from the blurred stone markers, observing how the thin silhouette stands solemnly, head pointing downward, eyes transfixed onto the three words that do not even come close to describing everything Emily is and was.

"I miss her so much, Morgan." Reid speaks in a voice that sounds foreign and wispy as it saunters over the stone graves and fluttering leaves. He frowns at the sentence, the scratchiness in Reid's tone, the innate knowledge Reid has of his presence, and he fights the urge to pull Reid into a long-overdue hug because it's been so long since he's really heard the younger agent speak openly. For a brief moment, he remembers how confidently that very same cracking voice once spewed statistics into factual whirlwinds.

"I do too, kid." His voice is surprisingly soft and composed, and Reid nods, tears glistening over jagged, angular cheekbones.

"We're losing, Morgan." These times, he thinks this is the most beautiful and truthful thing that Reid, or anyone, has ever said, but he cannot agree. He cannot as much as nod his head against the slight breeze tickling his stubbled cheeks.

"She wouldn't want this, Reid." He echoes Rossi's words, and the young man nods, pausing to turn towards him. The expression is soft and creates wrinkles around his squinted eyes.

"For the first time in my life, I'm starting to understand why Gideon left." The statement takes all his air, his collective hope, and bursts all the insinuated times into the night, richochetting everything off of granite half-crescents. He wants to drop to his knees to feel how the dewdrops saturate his pants and stain the cloth. He wants to tear at the earth, to finally wash her blood off his once-capable hands, but, these days, these times, he knows he cannot bend. He cannot break. Instead, he bits the inside of his cheek, does not wince at the pain, and clasps a gentle hand against Reid's bony shoulder.

Underneath his hand that once was stained with Emily's blood, Reid's muscles involuntarily tense. The young, yet too old, expression morphs, breaks, and the sobs rush forward in ways he cannot help but understand. He hesitates, ignores old formalities, and pulls Reid towards him, cupping a dark hand against light, boyish curls as he wonders when Reid became so comfortable with physical contact. He cannot recall a time or place, yet he holds the younger agent together. He is doing for Reid what Garcia has wordlessly done for him, and he knows he cannot waver. These oncoming days among stone mementos of the dead, of her, he begins to remember as the light peeks its warmth around tall Oak trees and gnarled roots. As the sky becomes a congealed wash of hued pinks, he releases Reid and they do not speak of the younger agent's breaking as the two men begin the slow ascent back to the warming pavement.

If morning is still too far away and night too crushingly strong, he plops Reid onto his couch while ignoring the man's inquisitive look as his gaze falls onto the empty bottle carnage. They eye one another like apprehensive strangers, and he watches Reid from the doorway until the young man falls into a restless sleep. Sometimes, he stands in the darkness, studying the elongated blue veins lining the milky-white length of Reid's arms. He does not see marks and his stomach hardens. He texts JJ to say that he's fine; Reid's fine, and that he'd like to put a bullet between Doyle's eyes.

He chooses to really recollect and visit her when the days become warmer and the last remnants of winter fades into spring's soft backdrop of chattering birds, greening grass, and humming bees that buzz around blooming flower beds. He's not sure what to say, but he always has words on these days. He tells her, tells Emily, about the team. He details how Hotch and Rossi coach Jack's youth soccer team and how they attends the boy's games when they're not on cases. He laughs as he explains how odd and misplaced Rossi and Hotch look among excitable five year olds, but he never fails to notice the genuine smile etched onto Hotch's face as he watches his son run after and for the black and white ball. He explains how Garcia's wardrobe is slowly becoming more colorful, and how they're starting to interact more. He mentions Seaver's graduation celebration, Reid's new dedication to the gym, and how he's finally stopped having nightmares and ghostly images of her blood lining his hands, staining both his past and present.

When he's done with updates, he murmurs low, desperate pleas. He tells her that he's trying to move on without letting go because she wouldn't want all this lying and despair. He explains how, on some lonely nights, just the memory of her laughter brings him to the bar. He talks about his father,who is a man he is beginning to forget as time spirals and trips over itself on the way to the present, and he swears he won't do that to her. Sometimes, he remembers what it was like to be vulnerable, and how this softness is so vastly different than the one Buffard used for his own warped advantage. When he bends to her grave to trace the cool front with light finger tips, his voice cracks, his body shakes, yet he feels the pull of emptiness. Perhaps, he tells the granite marker, he will let go, like she begged him to do in the concrete warehouse. As the sun extends into graying night, he squints at the rapidly-diminishing epithet and decides that, when the time comes, he will finish what she started all those years ago by finding Doyle and pulling the trigger. These moments are his promises, his regrets, and he vows for himself, Emily, and the team, that he will never let another moment, another life, slip from his grasp again.

When he follows the familiar tracks back to the living world, he studies the concave shoe prints with a relieved expression. They've all walked this way and have come before and after has has, and the knowledge of this shared journey eases the burning feeling that droops and weighs onto every one of his limbs. He turns his head upwards towards the oncoming path, feels the diminishing warmth of the late-afternoon's rays on his skin, and tells himself that things will always be dark, if not wrong. He will walk forward because, this time, he knows that he's come too far to return to anything other than the shaky ground he finds himself standing on now. But he keeps Emily with him always because a memory, even if it's a slight feeling of her hand in is, is better than the crash of forgetting. Sometimes, he thinks that her death and his descent into grief is beyond him or maybe even above him in the sky dotted with ink-colored clouds. When the rain begins to patter shattering off the grass, paved roads, and trees, he acknowledges that he no longer believes in a God, a higher power, or fragmented bands of hope that are disappearing to make way for even darker portions of night. Yet, he holds himself steady, a part from it all, and braces himself against the dissolved absolution that will eventually come.

These days, he pretends that vowing to protect does not feel like such a burden.


	8. Emily

**Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long- grad school is kind of crazy and I've had some computer issues lately. Also, this last POV was difficult to write and it took a while to get the voice how I wanted. I know nothing about undercover work, especially the kind Prentiss did and is presumably completing, but I've given Emily more identities than the show did. Thank you to everyone who's followed this story, especially to those who have reviewed.**

**If anyone's following my story "Should Have Known," please sit tight. School is insanely busy, so that story may be put on hold for a while.**

**Happy reading! :)**

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"_But I live, I live a hundred lifetimes in a day, but I die a little in every breath that I take. Amen, omen. Will I see your face again? Amen, omen. Can I find the place within to live my life without you?" –Ben Harper, "Amen, Omen"_

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These days, she pulls at old identities, grabbing charades like they are worn, moth-eaten overcoats stored and forgotten in a dusty attic among water-stained books and faded photographs. She floats from place to place, cover to cover, like a ghost that haunts endless foggy moors and twisted wooden hallways that lead to a series of locked doors. There are times where she waits in an idling car on warm summer nights under star strewn skies, in a bustling square filled with mid-morning shoppers and gawking tourists, and in dingy hotel rooms with plaster walls and squeaky beds, and she wonders when this game will end. She whispers new names and backgrounds to herself in an endless mantra because these days are filled with murmured information, quick steps, and monotony that stretches forward, as blurred as speeding train over steel tracks. These nights find her reaching for her gun at every sound and, soon, they become a lonely tribute to and penance for her crimes. She waits in darkness because, these times, she knows she is very close to disappearing.

These days, she tries to keep control, to keep record, of who she is, _was, _just so someone will remember. In between times when the pretense of finding a man skilled at hiding becomes too difficult, she allows herself to remember what she once had, what once was, even if these acknowledgements cripple and overcome every notion she's ever had of leaving everything behind. During these times of desperation, she can see the past, her life, flickering in clips, like a film projector splatters scenes against white washed walls. But the reminders are everywhere; they're in everyone and everything, and, suddenly, nothing is more difficult than forgetting.

The languages are what startle her the most not because she knows many, but because Rossi, even at his most infuriatingly wise, calm, and accepting moments, knew how to mumble just one foreign phrase that could stop her blood from boiling. She's sees his face occasionally in the bearded men who sell bread at the local French market and in the shadowed, half-obstructed expressions during an Irish mass chanted in ancient Latin. But she sees him the most in every lingering expression and hearty laugh that floats through and off the cobblestones encompassing Italian streets. On the nights she manages a few hours of sleep between tangled, sweat-soaked sheets, Rossi appears, eyes twinkling and understanding, and he tells her to be strong and to find Doyle for him. When she wakes, the sun is kissing the sky with rosy pinks, and she watches its full expanse and spread, saying a quick prayer over her meager breakfast of bread and coffee. On the beginning of these days, she hopes he is not waking from his own nightmares or with an all-too familiar hangover. Before she leaves, yet another, cockroach infested hotel, she lingers at the paned view of morning, squeezing her eyes shut as she silently sends a message of strength to the man that was more of a father to her than her own. These days, this hope is the only thing that keeps her together.

On slow days when any trace of Doyle has all but disappeared and her leads are non-existent, she walks through crowded streets, stopping to admire local foods, trinkets, and markets. There are people everywhere, and she sometimes grabs a strong coffee, one that she knows would make Reid salivate, and she watches. She knows this break is wasting precious time, but time does not feel real these days as it crawls its way to the present.

There are mothers pushing strollers and laughing at their children. There are chubby-cheeked teenagers with thin rolled cigarettes that dangle off glossed lips. There are old men on park benches with veined hands that snake in another wrinkled hand or around smooth chess pieces, and, for a moment, she thinks that Reid would be happy here. She can see him reading under gnarled park trees, or sitting on granite stools, studying a chess board with a determined, yet hidden, expression. He'd love the too sweet baked goods, coffee the color of potting soil, and the libraries filled with dusty books and echoing corridors. Sometimes, when she pauses long enough to imagine this hypothetical life for Reid, she forgets that he is grieving, struggling with headaches he mentioned lifetimes before, and mourning her death. She stares at her coffee mug and her stubbed, cracked fingernails against the ceramic. She hates herself for this nervous habit. She hates that Reid noticed. She hates that he cared. She hates that she hid from Doyle, Reid, and the team. If anything these days, she drains the last bits of her caffeine and decides to start working because, these times, she cannot allow herself to remember the young genius who, about now, would be buried under files while trying to avoid her abandoned desk. This bitter motivation stings the most because, these moments, she knows that Reid would never forgive her for such a blatant betrayal.

Whenever she sees woman sauntering by in endlessly tall high heels clanking a path that is accented by trailing perfumes, she grins at the thought of Morgan. Like Reid, he'd enjoy life here too, although for different reasons. Sometimes, when she feels a deep, sudden ache for home, she imagines his smile and how the corners of his dark cheeks dimpled into two neat ovals. When nightmares have her bolting upright covered in a cold liquid and panicked that she will never be free again, it's Morgan's voice she hears, begging her to stay and to keep hanging on just a bit longer. Sometimes while holding train or metro schedules or when her hands are uncovered against a vinyl steering wheel, she studies her hands and wonders if Morgan's blood could be caught with her fingers in the same ways his capable palms covered her wounds. Sometimes, especially during the endless days and desperate nights, she wishes Morgan had let go. She wishes that he had believed she was human enough to fail so glorious. There are days she wants to call him just to hear his voice once more because, some days, the memory of his reassuring tone has all but faded from her mind.

One week after agonizingly following dead ends, she made her way to the very hill she detailed between tiles, warped mirrored images, and dripping faucets. The sun extended long bands of morning light over the tiny village below, illuminating its leaning wooden structures and green, rolling pastures. Dew stained her worn sneakers, seeping through the mesh patterns and, by the time Emily reached the top, the stitch in her side had blossomed into a cramp. She clutched her ribs, inhaled and exhaled slowly, and, when the pain passed, she stood to her full height as ribbons of purple, blue, and red colored the sky with another day. The tints warmed her cold appendages, sending life to every defense that she was forced to haphazardly build. Suddenly, Garcia is everywhere. She is the in sage colored blades of grass, the dew now soaking through her jeans as she sits onto the damp earth, and in the lengthening rays, kissing every bit of the earth with color, beauty, and truth. How long she sat on a hill in the middle of the countryside, she wasn't sure, but, the sun singed the top of her head when she finally made her way downwards, slipping on loose rocks and clumps of dirt parted by herds of sheep. These days, she touches her face, feels the cool saline, tilts her cheeks upwards, and vows to Penelope that she will save herself for no reason other than she promised she would.

Some days, when she's closer to Doyle than she's been in many weeks, she searches within herself for a place where her composure and strength once were stored. These days, the search is hard, the journey long, and, at the end of most days, she changes into a ratty t-shirt and cotton underwear, crawls underneath musty hotel covers, sticks a fist between her teeth, and quietly sobs until her body heaves with waves of silent shame. This ritual always leaves her throat hoarse, knuckles bleeding, and her cheeks burning. Underneath her bare feet, tiles feel painfully cold as she stumbles to the bathroom, pausing to flick a switch that sends a flickering overhead light outwards. She always splashes cool liquid over her face. This pattern does not cease, although sometimes she cannot cry because her tears have run dry. Still, she continues this routine because it feels like she should suffer too, just like she knows her former friends are. _It's only right_, she tells herself. _It's only fair_.

But, one day when the hunt for Doyle seems impossible and her memories faded, Emily rises from the bathroom sink and, in the cracked, cloudy mirror, Hotch's steady gaze meets hers. He's not behind her, this much she's sure of, but he's in the reflection, staring at her hard, like she remembers. She blinks, he doesn't, and they continue the battle of wits.

"What do you want?" She manages to say. He sighs, but his gaze does not penetrate any less than before.

"You need to stop this, Emily." His voice is soft, concerned, but firm, like a leader's should be and like his has always been.

"I'm trying," she argues and his look intensifies, narrowing at the center. The look was not real, but it had to be because the last time she had seen it was about a week after Doyle's escape and her impalement:

_In the hospital room removed from the bustling recovery ward and guarded by two plain clothes agents, she saw those same eyes when waking from a drug-induced coma. It was a few days after her "death" and Emily had blinked to make sure Hotch's profile wouldn't disappear._

"_I can't stay long." His eyes already told her that much. The creases by his lids were more defined. In a minute that felt like hours, the years arranged themselves, piling against the man she had once believed was unflappable._

"_I know. You shouldn't be here right now." She said. Hotch blinked, as if flinching at her honestly, but he did not falter more than a few fluttered eyelashes._

"_I figured out what happened a few days ago," she continued. "Clyde explained what he, you, and JJ decided, but I knew after surgery." Hotch's eyes bore into hers, and she couldn't look away._

"_I knew when I the anesthesia wore off and I came to…no one was at my bedside..." _

_It was foolish to admit, selfish even, yet the sight of a vacant plastic chair told her everything. The plastic seat was void of Morgan's steady presence, Reid's eyes racing over some small text, Garcia's sniffling, JJ's comforting blue orbs, Hotch's stoic demeanor, or Rossi's worn rosary beads and mumbled prayers. The emptiness had signaled a small implosion that Emily understood would shatter the sense of family she managed to rebuild. _

"_You know how this works." Hotch said. At his words, the tears collected behind her lenses before she could stop them. The plastic hospital bracelet with a scribbled alias, one many, maybe hundreds, she now cannot remember, became very interesting._

"_JJ will meet you in a few months once you've recovered and been relocated. I know you're prepared for what's next." It was the insinuated order masked in a clipped tone that made the tears stop. She struggled to sit upright, but stopped when the pain surged through her stomach._

"_Hotch…" But the explanation would not come, although she wanted words more than she wanted Doyle dead, her life back, and her past erased. Red, hot shame welled, staining her cheeks and, that day, she wanted to evaporate into nothingness, floating through life on an aimless breeze where she never stayed anywhere too long and never learned enough to hurt another._

"_Good luck, Emily." He stood and the plastic chair pushed over the ground, scraping metal legs against the linoleum tiles. She watched his familiar stride to the door, storing the pressed suit, jet black hair, and set jaw into memory. When he paused in the doorway that day, Emily saw his lips part, clamp shut, but his body still turned to face her. Even these days, she imagines what Hotch might have said, but the fact that he didn't say much of anything meant he understood. Somehow, he always did._

"_Good luck to you too, Hotch." And, with another brief nod and a firm expression, he left the room._

These days, she can't help but think that Hotch's silence said more than a thousand words and, when and if she finally returns, he may have no way to explain that he, a man set by rules, honestly, and integrity, had deliberately misled the very team he once swore to protect.

There are days when the memories are everywhere, and they come in blinding rushes that leave her unprepared for the onslaught of warmth, pain, and the remnants from another life- the one she once was foolish enough to believe would not change. Yet, when the thin woman with flax colored hair sits across the table, she smells her vanilla-scented perfume and sees her resolute blue eyes, she feels more alive than she has in months. Emily manages to take the manila envelope that's bulging with lies, grabbing it with stubbed, raw fingernails. She cannot meet the gaze, cannot admit the smallest exhalation of air. Shame wells in her cheeks when JJ wishes her luck, and she is moving before she acknowledges the motion. She walks fast, high heeled boots clicking off stones, running from someone who knew her as Emily Prentiss, and someone who now must pretend she is dead. She doesn't get far, only a deserted alley lined with garbage cans, but she leans against the bricks as her abdomen aches painfully while she retches onto the ground. This release does not take more than a minute, and she straightens, pulls at her skirt and flips her hair behind her ears. The paper envelope crunches slightly under the pressure applied by her fingertips, but she clutches her new lives. This day, she feels just how fucked up everything is when the cold stone does not leave her stomach. She is no longer young, naïve, or even whole. There are times when she closes her eyes and all she can see is JJ's determined, concerned expression waiting for an explanation she may never have.

In one cold hotel room that smells like cigars and creeping, hidden mold, she listens to the patter of rain against the windowpane, which rattles the old wooden frame against the rickety building. She's exhausted, half-frozen, but far from sleep. She is not Emily Prentiss. Since she's entered the Czech Republic, she's Amalie Slovak. Before that, she was Jeanne Marcoullier and Maria Contabella. There are more false identities hidden in the envelope. These days, there are more reasons to forget and move on than there are to dwell and remember.

The bedframe in the adjacent room begins to rhythmically pulsate against the wall and, over the loud moans of its two entwined occupants, Emily sighs, throwing her own blankets aside. The movement, like many, is too quick, and her hardened abdominal scars surge with pain. She stops, catches her breath, applies the smallest bit of pressure against the scar tissue, and waits for the pain to subside. She limps on tingling ankles to the small bag containing her possessions. If she can't sleep, she might as well decide which person she will become next.

Among the passports, forms, and paperwork there is an envelope she has never seen before. It is taped to the inside of the folder and covered with identical paper. The sides are unequally thick, but she has been too preoccupied with Doyle and her own depression to give the quirk a second thought. Now, with shaking fingertips, she reaches for the pristine white scrap, opening the flap to reveal glossy photographs. When her breath hitches in her throat, she manages an astonished cry, and the tears are ready before she can even stop them. In her shaking hands, are the years, the people, who made her life matter. With bitten, cracked nails, she traces their familiar faces, lingering on Reid's high cheekbones, Morgan's dimpled smile, Garcia's cheery outfit, Rossi's smirk, JJ's caring expression, and Hotch's deadpan stare. She stares at the small bundle until her eyes burn, her body trembles, and, when a hidden, tiny white parchment flutters to the tiled floor, she reaches for it immediately, desperate for contact.

_Never forget who you are._

The loopy penmanship is hastily scrawled, as if the words were important yet rushed, but the handwriting is definitely JJ's. The frolic in the room next door has reached its climax, and Emily laughs loudly over the continual thumps, cries, and moans. She holds photographs from a past, her past, to her chest, lying with her hair sprawled against the floor as she squints through tears at the water-stained ceiling. This time, she knows what to do, what she must finally accomplish, and there's no going back. There's no way to undo what has happened, but she must create a future that could set her free or destroy them all. This time, she pulls herself together for no reason other than the people captured on the glossy prints deserve far better than she was able to provide.

These days, she returns to her work, to her task, with straightened composure and recovered strength. The past is still everywhere, but the reminders are not crippling anymore. Instead, there are a moments, days, and times where she sees her team everywhere, in everyone, and she smiles at the memories. Morgan is grinning at her with a flash of pearly whites. Reid is mumbling in Russian so no one else will overhear or understand their joke. Seaver places an espresso on her desk with a tentative smile. Rossi calls her 'kiddo' after a trying moment. Garcia's voice resonates through her voice-mail, promising more love than she knows how to accept. Hotch proudly brags about Jack, who is probably growing faster than even she can imagine now. She carries the fading note and one folded group photo underneath her bullet proof vest, close to Doyle's scars and even closer to her heart.

They are with her always, as she hopes she is with them, and, these days, she's not sure that her past matters. She chooses identities on a whim, and throws herself shamelessly onto airplanes, trains, and boats that fly, chug, and bob towards every new destination that is miles and miles away from her team. These days, not much really matters, not her old aliases, job, or even lies. All that matters, she understands while waiting it a darkened bar as rain slams against windows and a cold draft rolls across the floor, is who she is, was, and who she may be. She is Emily Prentiss and, when the contact approaches, brushing stay remnants of rain off his jacket, she narrows her eyes in focus, mentally reviews the deception ahead, and swears she will, finally, do what's right. As she sits and eyes the opening to destroy a man who destroyed the family she held so close, she recalls a life that meant more than any one person ever did.

"Hello, Anastasia. You look well, even though I believe the journey has been rough." The stranger says. His eyes twinkle, and she nods curtly, leans forward, and plunges straight into the story.

"True," she catches the man's gaze, "But I think I've weathered the storm." These coded words are not references to the tempest outside, but they are magic: The man's eyes light, acknowledging the encryption they've woven into an abstract conversation, and he reaches into his overcoat, pulling a large, crinkled folder from its depths.

"I believe it may be hard still, but this can help." The paper scratches lightly against the wooded table decorated with cigarette burns and ringed imprints from wine glasses. She eyes the offering, but does not sweep the confidential, yet extremely important information, from sight. Instead, she holds the man's look, nods, and speaks words that have become a testament, an omen, to the fight ahead.

"What haunts you never leaves without a fight."

Emily shoves the file under he own coat, pushing the wooden chair backwards as the man signals for the bartender while nodding and simultaneously ending their brief, cryptic, encounter. This night, she does not glance backwards before disappearing into the rainy, windy street.

These days, she understands that the battle may never be won, she may never return home, yet, still, these days, she reaches down, reaches out, and braces for the final amen.


End file.
